Archive for Uncategorized

ORGANIZATIONS AND ASSOCIATIONS

January 11, 2010 at 2:49 pm · Filed under Uncategorized

Poster for the Jewish Community Center Summer Camp

Organizational life in the 19th Century began with the first non-congregational association, the Ladies Benevolent Society active in the early 1880s before the establishment of the Montefiore Society in 1883. Both were philanthropic groups, most of the members belonging to Gates of Heaven. In 1897, women at that synagogue organized the Ladies Auxiliary. As each additional synagogue came into being, women organized ladies auxiliaries or sisterhoods. In Schenectady, as in other communities, Jews felt a responsibility to form charitable organizations. Other charitable groups included the United Hebrew Charities in 1897, the Hebrew Sick and Benevolent Society in 1909, and the Hebrew Sheltering and Aid Society in 1913. As an example, the latter organization took responsibility for poor Jews traveling through the city. To deal with the problems within the community local women organized the Ladies Auxiliary in 1913 which became the primary Jewish social service organization in the city in the 1920s. The National Council of Jewish Women started a Schenectady chapter in 1916. It emerged as a major philanthropic group from its inception through the 1950s, dealing with war related activities and refugee issues. These organizations relied heavily on volunteers from the German Jewish community and Gates of Heaven. The creation of the Ladies Auxiliary in 1913 marked the emergence of women from Hungary and Russia as part of the philanthropic community in Schenectady.
The arrival of Jews from Eastern Europe led to a significant expansion of associations. At least three fraternal organizations, like the Sons of Judah were organized, which also established cemetery plots for their members, as did each synagogue and some of the other fraternal groups. Workmen’s Circle combined socialism, Yiddish culture and fraternal membership. Branch 117, organized in 1912 remained active until it merged with an Albany branch in 1972. Before World War I Jewish immigrants attracted to radicalism also established an anarchist group linked to Emma Goldman and a Jewish branch of the Socialist Party. These organizations were in every Jewish community and represented the cultural, political, and social traditions of Jewish immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe that combined radicalism, loyalty to Orthodox Judaism, and Yiddish language culture. Jewish lodges also appeared in non-Jewish national fraternal organizations, like the Zion Lodge of Odd Fellows.
Efforts to form a community educational institution led to the Talmud Torah in 1912 which evolved into the United Hebrew Community in 1924, chartered for charitable work and “to improve the spiritual, mental, and social condition of the people of the Jewish faith” in Schenectady. Simultaneously, two young people’s groups merged in 1915 to form the YMHA and in 1916 YWHA. By 1929, these groups joined with the United Hebrew Community to create the Jewish Community Center. Located for decades on Germania Avenue in what was the major Jewish neighborhood it moved to follow the movement of the Jewish community in 1967 to its present location in Niskayuna. The JCC provides educational, cultural, recreational, and social activities.

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Jewish Buisnesses in Schenectady

January 9, 2010 at 4:24 pm · Filed under Uncategorized

The first Jews who settled in Schenectady came as peddlers, or small dealers in liquor, clothing, and groceries. In fact, in synagogues in communities like Albany or Syracuse one third to one half of the males were initially employed as peddlers. By the 1870s and 1880s, some had opened small businesses, and some prospered. Alexander Susholz, a German immigrant began as a peddler and by the time of his death in 1886 he built a major clothing establishment which he left to his sons. Emanuel King, an immigrant from Austria settled in Schenectady in the early 1860s, and when he died in 1905 he had become a prominent local businessman and civic leader, who started as a tailor and prospered. Julius Davidson came from Prussia and achieved success in the retail clothing business. In the early 1860s he moved to Schenectady, and for forty years ran one the city’s major retail clothing shops on 248-252 State Street. Isaac Levi came from Germany and built a thriving liquor business as did the even more successful wholesale liquor dealer, Henry Heilbronner, another immigrant. Pfeifer Levi came from Germany in 1851 and emerged as a prominent clothing businessman. The most successful of these early German and Austrian immigrants was Jonathan Levi, who settled in Schenectady in the 1860s, began as a peddler, and made a fortune in the wholesale grocery business.
The arrival of Jews from Hungary and Eastern Europe created a new generation of peddlers who struggled to survive economically. Also, it produced small kosher bakeries, butcher shops, and restaurants. One could go to kosher stores, like the New York Deli or Romanoff’s or Hy Sofer’s Kosher Deli to eat, or purchase meat or baked goods that Orthodox Jews knew were prepared according to dietary laws. The passing of the immigrant generation, the higher educational levels of the children, and the movement of the population led most of these Jewish oriented stores to close. Today, the one kosher bakery is Mont Pleasant Bakery, and one can go to the kosher section of the Price Chopper started by Louis Golub, or to the kosher catering of Agudat Achim. For nostalgia of a Jewish style deli there is Gershons.

The number of Jewish businesses that existed are too numerous to mention. Hershel Graubart remembers when two thirds of the stores on State Street would close for the Jewish High Holydays. Some of the Jewish merchants innovated like Max Cohn, an immigrant from Latvia who arrived in Schenectady in 1898, founded the United Fruit Company and later the Original Super Market in 1932. Louis Golub started a grocery in 1908 which his sons William and Bernard turned into Central Markets, now Price Chopper.

Abe Cohen, born in Austria, started a dress shop on State Street in 1912 which became Imperial, a women’s clothing store. Jewish immigrants concentrated in clothing, groceries, and jewelry. Samuel Graubart started a jewelry store in 1897 after he emigrated from Austria. This store remained open until 2002. The photos and objects in this exhibition are only a tiny sampling of the many Jewish owned retail stores that existed in Schenectady over the last one hundred and fifty years. The passing of the immigrant generation, the decline of the downtown business district, changes in fashion, and the emergence of malls led to the decline and closing of many of these stores and businesses.

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BETH ISRAEL AND ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONS

January 8, 2010 at 2:50 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , ,

The immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe and Hungary created the need to establish additional Orthodox congregations. When immigrants arrived in the 1880s and 1890s all of Schenectady’s congregations were Orthodox, but differences based on ritual and country of origin created splits and the demand for new congregations. Hungarian Jews after initially joining Agudas Achim (Agudat Achim) split off for good in March 1902. The congregation met on South Center Street until the construction of a new synagogue on Hamilton Street in April 1907. The Mont Pleasant section of Schenectady attracted Jewish immigrants and many of the Hungarians worked as craftsmen at General Electric. Within the Jewish community, Ohab Zedek became the Hungarian synagogue and Agudas Achim the Russian synagogue. In 1937 the congregation constructed a new building on State Street which is now a theater.
Another group of recent immigrants from Eastern Europe did not feel comfortable in either Agudas Achim or Gates of Heaven and formed Ohab Sholom in 1894. A group of small dealers and peddlers formed an Independent Verein as a separate religious community in 1907, but merged into Ohab Sholom by World War I. The congregation did not formally incorporate until January 1924 with a synagogue on 419 Broadway. It previously met on South Center Street. In April 1931, the cornerstones for the new building were laid on Hamilton Street.
A split in Agudas Achim in 1914 led Rabbi Solomon Hinden and his supporters to break away and form Adath Israel. Rabbi Hinden and his supporters formally incorporated their congregation on June 26, 1916 with the congregation meeting at 832 Albany Street. In 1925, the congregation built a new synagogue on the 800 block of Albany Street where they remained until the congregation disbanded in the late 1960s.
Yet another faction of Orthodox Jews organized a separate congregation, Bnei Abraham, that met on 526 South Center Street. It incorporated in 1916. The congregation later moved to Broadway before merging into Ohab Sholom sometime between 1936-1943. In 1955 Ohab Sholom-Bnai Abraham merged with Ohab Zedek to become Beth Israel. The new congregation met at the Ohab Zedek building. The congregation built a new building in 1964 on Eastern Parkway which it used as a Hebrew School until it was expanded into the current synagogue in 1971. Today, Beth Israel is only remaining Orthodox congregation in the city

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AGUDAT ACHIM

January 7, 2010 at 8:01 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , ,

Jews from the Russian Empire arrived in Schenectady in the 1880s, as they did in the neighboring communities of Albany and Troy, leading to a sudden growth in the number of synagogues. While most accounts suggest that Congregation Agudat Achim formed in 1890 it appears to have begun in 1888 when the first minyan met and became a formal congregation in 1889 with the drafting of a constitution. The congregation made it clear that its members would follow the minhag Polin, the ritual followed by Jews of Poland and Lithuania, similar to that of Congregation Beth El Jacob in Albany. Although Orthodox, like the members of Gates of Heaven in the 1880s, that congregation followed a German ritual, that recent immigrants from the Russian Empire found foreign and unacceptable. In addition, this new congregation insisted that all congregational business be conducted in Yiddish, reflecting the mother tongue of most East European Jews, and all officers must have fluency in Yiddish. Ironically, the constitution included words in German to make it sound high class, and not the work of recent immigrants with limited education. Founding members agreed to expel congregants who did not marry according to Jewish custom, meaning if they married Gentiles, and those who did not follow Orthodox ritual and laws.
Initially, the congregation met in a hall on State and Jay streets, and later at the Center Street Opera House. A group of Hungarian Jews joined the congregation but they split off to form Ohab Zedek in 1893, rejoined and left for good in March 1902. Differences in ritual and country of origin led to frequent synagogue splits making “Jewish unity an oxymoron,” according to historian Hasia Diner. By 1903, the congregation bought a site on Nott Terrace and began construction of a new synagogue in 1907. The laying of the cornerstone made front page news in June 1908. In 1910, the congregation had 1,200 people show for the High Holidays, and Gentiles called it the Nott Terrace synagogue and the “leading orthodox congregation in the city.” Conflict over Rabbi Solomon Hinden led him and his followers to leave in 1914 to form Orthodox Adath Israel. By the 1920s, Americanization of the second generation led to a decision to modernize services by affiliating with Conservative Judaism in 1927, similar to the emergence of Conservative congregations in Albany and Troy. Some older members dissented and left Agudat Achim to join Orthodox congregations. Just as Gates of Heaven became the only Reform community in Schenectady, Agudat Achim remains the only Conservative congregation in Schenectady County. Growth of membership and the movement of the Jewish community from downtown to the suburbs led to the construction of a new building in 1971 on the Troy-Schenectady Road.

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Gates of Heaven

January 5, 2010 at 6:49 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , , ,

The first Jews who settled in Schenectady, primarily peddlers, tailors, and minor merchants in clothing, liquor, and groceries, organized a congregation in 1854. The congregation formally incorporated on October 20, 1856 as Sharei Shomajim. Initially, the members came from Germany, and lived in the area near Union, Liberty, College, Front, and Ferry streets. The establishment of the first congregation in Schenectady paralleled the organization of synagogues in Albany, Troy, and other parts of upstate New York. Members of this “Israelitish Church” used German, Yiddish, and Hebrew and prayed according to Orthodox German ritual, probably similar to Beth El in Albany. At first, members met in homes but began to meet in a building on 6 Liberty Street and later 206 Liberty Street. In 1859, the congregation became one of the founding members of the first national Jewish body, Board of Delegates of American Israelites. By 1865, it acquired a new building on 7-9 Ferry Street. Most accounts suggest that it was the only congregation in Schenectady until the late 1880s, but a report in 1910 suggested it may have merged with another congregation on Ferry Street.
In 1891 the congregation began work on a new building on College Street where the synagogue remained from 1892 to 1920. Members of Gates of Heaven established the first Jewish cemetery in 1857, and by the late 19th Century, the first Jewish associations, not directly connected to a synagogue, actually consisted of members from the congregation. By this point, the Gentile community called the congregation the College Street temple or synagogue. Between 1890-1907 the congregation altered its religious ritual formally joining the Reform body, Union of American Hebrew Congregations in 1907. The growth of the congregation and the movement of its members led to plans to move the synagogue to what the press called the upper part of the city in 1910. However, it took a decade before the congregation purchased a church on Rugby Road and Parkwood Boulevard, converted into a synagogue and moved to its new structure in 1920. The College Street building opened as a Catholic Church in 1922. Reflecting the suburbanization of the Jewish community after World War II, Gates of Heaven relocated to present location on Eastern Parkway and Ashmore Ave in 1956.

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INTRODUCTION—SCHENECTADY JEWISH HISTORY

January 4, 2010 at 7:32 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , , ,


Jewish immigrants from Germany and Austria arrived in Schenectady in the 1840s-1860s. Once Jewish immigrants reached sufficient numbers to support a congregation they organized both a synagogue, Gates of Heaven, and purchased land for a cemetery, the key elements in the creation of all Jewish communities in the United States. Many Jewish immigrants in the 19th Century started as peddlers, and in Schenectady they began as peddlers, and small dealers in clothes, liquor, and groceries. By the 1880s, they began the creation of the first non-synagogue related institutions, like the Montefiore Society in 1883. Charitable work and providing for the poor within the community became an essential part of the Jewish experience. As a community, Jews wanted to identify and be accepted in their new homeland. They identified with their fellow Americans in times of national tragedy, like the murder of President Garfield in 1881, and showed their loyalty in times of war, as they did in World War I and II.
From the 1880s to 1924, new Jewish immigrants from Hungary, Russian Empire and Austria arrived in Schenectady with the population increasing to 5,000 by 1918. General Electric, for example, attracted Jewish craftsmen from Hungary. Other Jewish immigrants tended to follow the pattern of German immigrants forty years earlier starting out as peddlers and small merchants. The arrival of the immigrants led to a sudden increase in religious institutions. At one point before World War I, there may have been as many as seven different synagogues. Initially they were all Orthodox, and shared a commitment to the creation of cemeteries for each congregation and supported kosher bakeries, delis, and butcher shops. Modernization and Americanization had an impact as Reform Judaism emerged within Gates of Heaven by 1907 and Agudas Achim became Conservative in the 1920s. Orthodox congregations eventually merged into Beth Israel. The story of the Jewish community is an interaction between the immigrants and America, between adapting to a new environment and values while retaining a sense of identity as Jews. This exhibition tells part, only part of the story of an immigrant community and how it evolved over the last one hundred and fifty years. Looking at the Jewish experience helps us understand the religious and ethnic mosaic of America.

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In the Devil’s Snare: Schenectady’s Connection to the Salem Witch Trials

December 14, 2009 at 7:57 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

In celebration of the opening of “Wicked” at Proctors, we are exploring the more historical side of witches! This is not the first time that Schenectady has been connected with witchcraft. Learn about Schenectady’s connection with the most famous witch trial in history…

On February 8th, 1690, Schenectady faced a devastating set back when 114 French troops and 96 Native Americans descended upon the unsuspecting town. After a bloody attack, 60 men, women, and children lost their lives, 27 men and boys were taken captive, and the town was set ablaze. As demoralizing as the catastrophe was to the survivors in Schenectady and the residents of upstate New York in general, it had lasting negative effects on the settlers of New England and, according to author Mary Beth Norton, helped (along with other French and Native attacks on English communities) cause the hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials.

Between February 1692 and May 1693 over 150 people were accused by a group of 40 or so individuals (mostly girls and female servants). By the end of the hysteria, nineteen people were hanged, one person was pressed to death, and as many as thirteen people may have died in prison. How could this tragedy stem from a French attack on a Dutch community over 150 miles away and culturally a world apart? In her book “In the Devil’s Snare” Mary Beth Norton hypothesizes on the emotional and psychological impact that the attacks had on people living very far away. Their fear of Native People especially helped create their image of the “Devil” and his abilities to ingratiate himself into their very community attacking their homes and families in a less visible but no less dangerous way then the Native Americans attacking frontier communities. The following selections from her book help explain the unexpected connection with the unthinkable attack on Schenectady with the most notorious witch hunt in American history.

1690 was a year of terrible attacks and setbacks for the English government in their war against France and their Native American allies. On February 24th, Samuel Sewall and his wife hosted a dinner party. “What should have been a pleasant and festive occasion, though, turned to ‘bitterness,’ Sewall noted in his diary, when the post arrived from Albany with the ‘amazing news’ of ‘the Massacre at Schenectady by the French.’” His journal went on to describe the attack “Schenectady, a village 20 miles above Albany, destroy’d by the French. 60 Men, Women and Children murder’d. Women and Child rip’d up, Children had their Brains dash’d out. Were surprise’d about 11 or 12 aclock Satterday night, being divided, and secure.”

The Schenectady attack has not the only attack undertaken by the French that cold, miserable winter. On March 18th, just as prisoners captured after the attack on Schenectady had predicted, 60 French and Natives attacked the community at Salmon Falls. Eighty to 100 people were killed or captured, the fort and more than 20 houses were destroyed as well as many cattle killed. After 5 days of fighting, the community of Falmouth surrendered to the French and their Native allies. Although promised quarter, the survivors of the attack were taken captive; many of the wounded men were killed.

These losses stunned and frightened many New Englanders and although many saw the attacks on Schenectady and Salmon Falls to at least be partially the fault of the settlers for their “unpardonable negligence” that “such a people are miserable and canot be saved,” the fear of attack and “Indians” in general put the whole country into a state of panic for the rest of 1690 and well into 1691.

This fear of attacks by Native people allied with the French may not be an easy jump to accusing your neighbors of witchcraft without the description of how New Englanders described the devil. In the various “attacks” and “confessions” of Salem residents, the devil is described as a “black man.” Historically this was believed to describe a man in black clothing and, further confusing the description, our modern terminology would bring about the image of a man of African descent. Norton asserts that “more likely than a reference to wearing apparel is that the adjective alluded to the specter’s dark or swarthy complexion- indeed, that the specter the witnesses envisioned resembled an Indian. On numerous occasions seventeenth-century colonists employed the word ‘black’ to mean ‘Indian’”

Misconceptions on the part of New Englanders that Native People were devil worshipers would explain why the devil looked like his followers. As people heard of more and more attacks after Schenectady, they feared for their own lives, for raids on their own communities. Truly believing that the devil walked among them and could attack at will, they saw his manifestation in Salem and his ability to not only attack the residents but to bring others into his circle as a logical strategy. The people of Salem were all to willing to see the “black man” their enemy amongst them.

Although revolutionary in her theories, Mary Beth Norton’s book has some logical and convincing arguments. It shows the interconnection between Colonial New York’s Dutch community and that of New England. While enjoying “Wicked” (or simply walking down the streets of the historic Stockade District) think about the connections Schenectady has to some of the benchmark periods of our country’s history!

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Didynamous at the Festival of Trees

December 8, 2009 at 6:02 pm · Filed under Uncategorized

Didynamous from Kate Weller on Vimeo.

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Where did the name “Schenectady” come from? Part Two

December 2, 2009 at 8:04 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , , ,

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Where did the name Schenectady come from?

December 1, 2009 at 3:05 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Scene from the New York State Museum

In our latest podcast, Daily Gazette Reporter and SCHS Volunteer, Bill Buell interviews David Cornelius. David is a Native American of Kanien’Kahake (“People of the Flint” and more commonly known as the Mohawk) and Mahicans (also Mohicans) descent. Currently working on his Masters Degree, David has researched, taught, and spoken on the Native People that lived in the area now known as Schenectady. David offers presentations at the Moon and River Cafe and he also acts as an educator in Native American history at our own Mabee Farm for school programs. In this interview, David talks with Bill about the origin of the name “Schenectady” as well as the history of the Native People who lived in this area before the Dutch.

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