Today’s post is by John LeGloahec, Archivist in the Electronic Records Division at the National Archives in College Park, MD.
The month of May is, among other things, recognized as Jewish American Heritage Month, recognizing the contributions of Jewish Americans to American culture, history, and society. There are a number of properties in the National Register series that include “Jewish” in the description, along with a number of synagogues and temples.
In Newport, Rhode Island, the “Touro Synagogue National Historic Site [National Archives Identifier 41375084], the oldest standing Jewish synagogue in the United States, is a small .23 acre site at #85 Touro Street in Newport, Rhode island. The synagogue was dedicated on December 2, 1763, by the Rabbi Isaac Touro, the first minister of the congregation of Newport Sephardim (Jews of Spanish and Portuguese origin).”
“The Masonic, Georgian style structure, designed by the preeminent eighteenth-century architect Peter Harrison, was built on an acute angle to the street so that those facing the synagogue’s Holy Ark would face eastward toward Jerusalem. Although plain, the exterior boasts a hipped slate roof, a modillion cornice, a center pedimented portico with ionic columns, and arched Palladian windows. The exterior brick walls are painted yellow ochre; the doors and window frames are painted brown. Attached to the main building and built at the same time is a two-story ell, designed primarily as a religious school for the children of the congregation. A granite-post and cast-iron fence, erected in 1842, encloses the structure.”
“In 1791, the synagogue was closed again and remained closed for 60 years. During this time, title of the building passed into the hands of the Congregation Shearith Israel of New York City. The building stood empty and neglected but not forgotten: Abraham Touro, son of Isaac Touro, left a $10,000 fund for the care and preservation of the synagogue upon his death in 1822. Thanks to this timely and unusual bequest for the preservation of an abandoned building, the structure underwent considerable repairs inside and out in the years 1827-29. Rabbi Touro’s second son, Judah, who died in 1854, left a bequest for the establishment of a Ministerial Fund at Touro Synagogue.”
“The synagogue was permanently reopened in 1883, at which time Rabbi Abraham P. Mendes became minister on the appointment of the New York congregation. In 1893 a new congregation was organized in Newport, taking the old name of Yeshuat Israel and following the traditional
Spanish-Portuguese ritual. It was incorporated by the state of Rhode Island in 1894, with the trustees of Shearith Israel acting as its trustees. The property is still owned by the Congregation of Shearith Israel of New York City who, together with the Secretary of the Interior, the Congregation Yeshuat Israel of Newport, and the Society of Friends of Touro Synagogue, National Historic Shrine, Inc., continue to preserve the balance, fabric, and genus loci of the site.”
In New York City, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum (National Archives Identifier 75315866) “is located in a building at 97 Orchard Street . . . erected in 1863-4. The building is located on the west side of Orchard Street between Delancey and Broome streets in the neighborhood, historically known as the Lower East Side. The street is built up entirely with nineteenth and early twentieth century, five- and six-story tenements, all with stores at street level. At the rear, the building faces onto Allen Street. Originally, other tenements, facing onto Allen Street, were located to the rear, but these were demolished when Allen Street was widened during the 1930s. With the exception of the shops on the first floor and basement levels, 97 Orchard Street has been vacant since the 1930s and is in a deteriorated condition.”
“The tenement at 97 Orchard Street is typical of tenements erected on the Lower East Side
during the 1860s. The building is a five-story and raised basement structure with cellar.
The facade of the building is faced in red brick. It is a simple example of a building designed in the Italianate style. Apparently, the building originally had two stores on the
basement level; early cast-iron pilasters are visible behind later storefronts. The cellar of the
building, which can be entered only from the north basement store, has rubble stone walls and exposed wooden beams.”
“The tenement apartments were originally entered via a centrally-located stone stoop with iron railing that led to a segmental-arched brownstone entrance enframement. The stoop was replaced with a metal stair and the stone enframement removed in 1905. The first floor was originally articulated by a single large segmental-arched window set to either side of the entrance. These windows were removed when the entire first floor facade was replaced by a wood and glass storefront in 1905. This storefront, consisting of cast-iron columns, slender wooden colonnettes, and plate-glass shopfronts, is largely extant.”
“A modest building by any standard, the six-story brick tenement at 97 Orchard Street is an outstanding survivor of the vast number of humble buildings that housed immigrants to New York during the greatest wave of immigration in American history. Erected in 1863-64, it constitutes part of the first rush of tenement building in New York City. Between 1880 and 1921, millions of immigrants flooded New York, most passing through Ellis Island. New York City and, in particular, the neighborhood of the Lower East Side are significant within the history of immigration simply because of the scale of the phenomenon as it occurred there, which far outweighed that in any other city in the United States. The 97 Orchard Street tenement represents the critical transition stage in which newly-arrived immigrants secured their first foothold in America and launched their struggle for a better life.”
In Lincoln, Nebraska is the Tifereth Israel Synagogue (National Archives Identifier 73921015), “an exemplary product of Neo-Classicism as employed in small-scaled synagogue architecture in the early part of the 20th century. Culturally, it is also significant for its ties to Orthodox Judaism in the City of Lincoln for many years.”
“The people of Congregation Tifereth Israel were following a national trend in synagogue architecture, then, when they chose to have a classical-type building erected in the early 1900’s. In the late 1950’s, a new synagogue was built on Lincoln’s Sheridan Boulevard, and the old building was transformed into the City’s Community Playhouse. Following construction of a new Playhouse, the former synagogue was used as an organ factory for a number of years.”
“Tifereth Israel has not only existed for the religious needs of Lincoln’s Orthodox Jewry; it has served the Jewish community’s social needs as well. Along with Temple B’nai Jeshuran (listed in the NRHP), congregants of Tifereth Israel have supported numerous organizations: a chapter of B’nai Brith, the Hebrew Relief Society, a Jewish Ladies Aid Society, a supports service, and other educational, charitable, and social organizations. This work is especially admirable in view of the relatively small size of the Lincoln Jewish community. Nebraska’s strong agricultural composition has not been one to encourage Jewish settlement. Farming did not attract many incoming Jews, who were not an agricultural people, having been barred from holding land in many countries.”
Located in Cincinnati, Ohio is the Bernheim House (National Archives Identifier 71988861), the home of the Bernheim / Burnham family, philanthropists and whiskey distillers (as a fan of bourbon, I appreciate the contributions of this particular Jewish American family to American culture). “The house at 195 Greenhills Road is significant in the Cincinnati area as a fine example of Colonial Revival Style . . . 195 Greenhills was built on a nearly 13 acre parcel that had been intact since 1888. Morris Bernheim developed it into the Green Hills subdivision in 1924 and Far Hills in 1928 . . . 195 Greenhills was built in 1912 for Morris and Delia Bernheim (changed in 1919 to Burnham). Morris Bernheim was the second son of Isaac Wolf Bernheim, a philanthropist and whiskey distiller of Paducah and Louisville, Kentucky. He founded I.W. Harper bourbon, which is still produced. Delia Fecheimer Bernheim was the daughter of prominent Cincinnati wholesale clothier May Fecheimer. The Morris Bernheim family moved to Cincinnati from Louisville in 1912. Morris Bernheim was a graduate of Yale with a degree in engineering. He is listed in the Cincinnati City Directories as vice-president of the Allyn Engineering Company, an architectural firm. He and his brother, E. Palmer Bernheim, founded the Alvey-Ferguson Company in Cincinnati. It manufactured conveyor belts, and was prosperous enough to open a branch in St. Louis. Alvey-Ferguson became part of Litton Industries in the mid-1960s . . . The house was incorporated into a standing 1840s farm house, which remains as the kitchen wing. Since the mid 19th century the land had been planted as a vineyard and worked by tenant farmers. When Morris Bernheim died, in 1926, his widow sold the house and moved the following year. The house remains in a fashionable area and has been inhabited by a succession of prosperous and prominent Cincinnatians.”
In Ulster Heights, New York, a small community in the Catskills, is the Ulster Heights Synagogue, a “small rectangular building, three bays wide by three bays deep. It is of wood frame construction and sits on a mortared fieldstone foundation; a cornerstone marks the completion of the building in 1924. The building features a gable roof with a deep wooden cornice with returns; the roof is clad in asphalt shingles. On the front elevation, the gable is obscured by a tall stepped parapet. Fenestration is simple, with windows consisting of wood-frame double-hung sash with one-over-one glazing and center entrance doors of plywood with several small glass panes. The entrance is sheltered by a deep gabled portico supported on wrought-iron piers. The outside wall of the portico is constructed of large fieldstones; its tripartite configuration encloses a double run of stairs. The center of the rear elevation is marked by an exterior brick chimney.”
“Ulster Heights Synagogue is significant as a representative example of an early twentieth century synagogue in the western Catskill Mountain region of New York. Built cl924, the synagogue served the Jewish agricultural community of Ulster Heights, a close knit group of farmers who settled the Beer Kill Valley, which straddles the Ulster/Sullivan County line, in the first decades of the twentieth century. The first Jews arrived in the area just after the turn of the century and the population grew steadily until the 1920s, when the synagogue was constructed. Although the twentieth-century development of this area followed the typical regional pattern of shifting from a fairly unproductive farm economy to one supplemented or surpassed by resort activity, the Ulster Heights community is unusual in that it remained an active farming community throughout the twentieth century. This is reflected in the open agricultural landscape and numerous farms, many still in operation, that characterize the Beer Kill Valley. The Ulster Heights synagogue is typical of the many vernacular synagogues found throughout the western Catskills, characterized by its small size, rectangular form and facade with over-scaled parapet. This synagogue is among the simplest of the type, embodying a familiar form and a traditional orthodox plan but constructed with few decorative embellishments. Despite a few non-historic alterations, the Ulster Heights synagogue continues to serve as a distinctive religious, social and cultural landmark for its community.”
“Jews settled in the Catskills as early as 1720, when Louis Moses Gomez, a Sephardic Jew, settled near Newburgh to trade with the Indians. Jewish peddlers, primarily of German extraction, abounded in the area in the early nineteenth century and, in 1837, an experimental Jewish communal farming community was established at Sholam, northwest of Ellenville. This community failed and at least one of its residents relocated to Ellenville. However, most late nineteenth century Jews in the region were not farmers and it would be another half century before Ellenville became a center of Jewish agricultural activity. Around 1900, Jews emigrating from eastern Europe began to settle in the Catskills in order to pursue agriculture. In 1908, one source reported that of 648 Jewish farms in New York State, 500 of them were in Sullivan and Ulster counties (Lavender 37). This new settlement group was attracted to the area known as the “lower Catskills,” an area between the Shawangunk Mountains and the high Catskills, because of its proximity to New York City, easy access via railroad and the more congenial environment created by its growing Jewish population. The area between Kerhonksen and Ellenville in Ulster County and Woodridge and Woodbourne in Sullivan County was particularly active, said at one time to support one thousand Jewish households (Lavender 38). This area developed an active, interconnected Jewish community, forming ties through social organizations, schools, synagogues and shared cemeteries. The establishment of several Jewish aid societies (such as the Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid Society) in Ellenville ensured that community’s prominent role in the lives of the region’s Jewish farmers.”
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring records from the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) and National Historic Landmarks Program Records, 2013 – 2017 (National Archives ID 20812721), a series within Record Group 79: Records of the National Park Service.