Alfred Moldovan: Civil Rights Hero and Judaica Collector

As we have reported earlier here, on Monday, November 4, 2013, YIVO’s longtime music archivist and Jewish cultural treasure Chana Mlotek passed away. But YIVO also lost another dear friend, Dr. Alfred Moldovan, who died that same day.

Many in the Jewish world knew Dr. Moldovan as a major Judaica collector and scholar. Together with his wife Jean, he amassed a large collection of important artifacts, which he generously made available to Jewish cultural institutions and other scholars for exhibitions and publication. Several of the most fascinating and rare images in The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe are from the Moldovan Family Collection.

(See one example of an image from the Moldovan Family Collection in the article on “Antisemitic Parties and Movements.” )

Dr. Molodovan was a longtime supporter of YIVO and a frequent presence at YIVO public programs.

What many were less familiar with was Dr. Moldovan’s heroic past. In 1964, he helped found the Medical Committee for Human Rights in support of the civil rights movement. On March 7, 1965, he was the only doctor who ventured onto the Pettus Bridge to care for those who were injured on the march from Selma to Montgomery. (Watch an interview with him about that experience here.) He remained a political activist, working, for instance, to desegregate the American Medical Association, and he practiced medicine in Harlem for over 47 years.

The world is a poorer place without him.