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Biographical/Historical Information

The banker and philanthropist Paul Baerwald was born in Frankfurt in 1871. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1896 and soon after he started his work to benefit the Jewish community. Particularly he was treasurer and then chairman of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC); a member of President Roosevelt's Advisory Committee on Political Refugees; trustee and founder of the New York Foundation; trustee of the Palestine Economic Corporation; treasurer of the Wollman Foundation; and trustee and treasurer of the Soloman and Better Loeb Convalescent Home. Paul Baerwald died in New York in 1961. The Paul Baerwald School of Social Work at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem is named in his honor.

Joseph Margulies was a highly awarded American painter, etcher and lithographer. He came to the United States from Austria at an early age, then studying in New York, Paris, and Vienna. Margulies excelled in every artistic medium, such as etching, lithography or painting and established himself as perhaps the greatest portrait artist in America; he was commissioned to execute the portraits of presidents and other distinguished individuals. American museums that include his original etchings and lithographs in their permanent collections are the Metropolitan Museum, New York, Yale University, the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institute.

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Citation

Portrait of Paul Baerwald / painted by Joseph Margulies, 1949, Leo Baeck Institute, F 001 AR 25581.