Maury M. Travis Collection

Collection

Identifier: MS-0401

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The Maury M. Travis Collection consists of personal papers, correspondence, and press clippings which document Travis's personal life. It includes birth records, legal name change documents, and family correspondence with Travis's siblings, parents, and other extended family members. His profession as a Petroleum Geologist, along with his interest in the formation of the State of Israel, the Middle East in general, and his interest in anti-Zionism, are well represented. The collection also contains significant primary documents concerning anti-semitism in general, and in San Diego specifically, with publications of White Supremacy organizations. The collection is loosely filed chronologically.

Dates

Creation: 1905 - 1989

Creator

Travis, Maury Marion (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

The copyright interests in some or all of these materials have not been transferred to San Diego State University. Copyright resides with the creator(s) of materials contained in the collection or their heirs. The nature of archival collections is such that multiple creators are often applicable and copyright status may be difficult or even impossible to determine. In any case, the user must assume full responsibility for any use of the materials, including but not limited to, obtaining publication rights and copyright infringement. When requesting images from Special Collections & University Archives for publication, we require a signed agreement waiving San Diego State University of any liability in the event of a copyright violation.

Biographical Note

Maury Marion Travis was born Moses Marion Kornfeld in West Virginia in 1905 to a large Orthodox Jewish family. He attended school in Tulsa, Oklahoma and graduated high school in 1922. He received a BA and Graduate Degree in Geology from Stanford University and entered the professional field of Petroleum Geology. Travis also served in the USAAF in the Corps of Engineers from 1929 to 1943.

He legally changed his name to Maury Marion Travis October 29, 1946 as a final severance of his Jewish roots due mostly to his objections to Zionism and the founding of the State of Israel, which he felt would precipitate "bloody wars." He had at one time been a member of Lessing Rosenwald's American Jewish Council for Judaism, strongly opposing the formation of the Jewish State in Palestine.

Travis converted to Christianity and was baptized June 22, 1952 at Abraham Lincoln's New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, but continued to support the Jewish Anti-Defamation League his entire life. Travis was a resident of San Diego from the late 1970s until his death in late 1989 or early 1990.