Norman D. Schwartz
1922 – 2014
Board member and Advisory Council member
Norman Schwartz was on the board of directors of the Maxwell Street Foundation (MSF) from 2004 until 2008. He informally kept notes of all our meetings and projects, and following his resignation from the board, Norman served on the Maxwell Street Foundation Advisory Council until his passing. In 2009, his four binders of MSF material that he had collected since 2003 were placed into the MSF collection. Norman’s association with the Foundation’s organizing members reaches back to the exhibit about the Jewish presence in the Maxwell Street neighborhood prepared for the 1990 opening of the UIC Levine Hillel Center, organized by its first Director, Elliot Zashin. Norman generously lent mounted photographs that had been on display by the Chicago Jewish Historical Society at the Chicago History Museum. In 1994, Norman joined members’ efforts to nominate the Maxwell Street Market Historic District to the National Register of Historic Places, travelling downstate with the group to testify before the Illinois Historic Sites Advisory Council, resulting in the nomination’s unanimous support by the Council.
Norman was a founding member and past president of the Chicago Jewish Historical Society, and he maintained a longtime interest in the history of synagogues in the Chicago metropolitan area. This prompted him to produce a list and map of forty synagogues of the Near West Side, including the Maxwell Street Market. He generously donated a report of his results to our collection.
Submitted by Lori Grove, President of the Maxwell Street Foundation, January 19, 2015
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CufTTL6myOuXu6385ICbxy8L79dYNN1d/edit