Published in 1952, The Chicago Pinkas covers the history of Chicago’s Jewish community. It was written to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the College of Jewish Studies. The foreword explains,

On a number of occasions, the members of the faculty of the College of Jewish Studies have given thought to the fact that Jewish Chicago is lacking in authentic and reliable information about the history, development and realties of the second largest Jewish community in the world.  While such information is inadequate in the case of other communities as well, Jewish Chicago has been particularly handicapped due to the fire of 1871 which destroyed materials and documents pertaining to the early Jewish settlers of Chicago; hence the great need for research and investigation to establish the beginning of Chicago Jewry.

The book, , written front-to-back in English and back-to-front in Hebrew, consists of scholarly essays, some footnoted, some with tables. There are no pictures other than reproductions of two title pages of older books, one in Hebrew, one in Yiddish.

The book refers to itself as volume 1, but I cannot discover that there were any subsequent volumes.

Today the College of Jewish Studies is the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership.

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