Since 2006, May has marked Jewish American Heritage Month, 31 days to explore and celebrate the impact of Jewish values, contributions, and culture on the nation’s history and character. Greenwich…
Read More…also served as important landmarks in the city’s Jewish history throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Here, the first Reform Jewish congregation in New York City was organized; eminent Jewish…
Read More…the Greenwich Village Historic District is quite rich in Jewish history, and the Jewish community’s presence remains in the neighborhood to this day. Charles Street Synagogue’s Rose Window The Greenwich…
Read More…capitalized, it refers specifically to the New York Kehillah, which speaks to the magnitude of Eastern European Jewish influence on the settlement of the Lower East Side. Jewish Market on…
Read More…(1920–1998), known as “Battling Bella,” was the first Jewish congresswoman from New York (serving three terms starting in 1971), the first Jewish woman candidate for New York City mayor and…
Read More…(or “Spanish and Portuguese”) Jewish families would establish in 1654 what is today the oldest Jewish congregation in the North America, Congregation Shearith Israel. While the present day synagogue for…
Read More…leaders of the last two centuries called our neighborhoods home? Here’s a few ways to explore our neighborhoods’ Jewish History: Take the Jewish History tour on our Greenwich Village Historic…
Read More…artists, sports figures, musicians, and thought leaders of the last two centuries called our neighborhoods home? Here’s a few ways to explore our neighborhoods’ Jewish History: Take the Jewish History…
Read More…Lower East Side may be more prominently associated with Jewish history, did you know that the cemetery containing the remains of some of the very first Jewish settlers of North…
Read More…specializes in twentieth century urban history. Her recent book, Walkers in the City: Jewish Street Photographers of Mid-Century New York (2023) extends her interest in urban Jewish history to photography. Currently she…
Read MoreWednesday, Oct 26 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm Location: Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011 Free In-Person Registration is required Join the American Jewish Historical Society…
Read MoreSchmaltzy: 5 dishes. 5 stories. So Jewish. We join the Jewish Food Society for an evening of storytelling that combines two of our favorite pastimes: kibbitzing and eating, featuring a…
Read More…Second Avenue Deli whose Molly Picon room offered diners a birds-eye view of Second Avenue’s theatrical denizens. * Dr. Elissa Sampson is a visiting scholar and lecturer in the Jewish Studies Program…
Read More…on by unprecedented labor strikes, political reform, and a tremendous influx of immigrants. It is estimated that between 1900 and 1914 one-third of the total Jewish population of Eastern Europe…
Read More…Emma Goldman. Goldman was born to Orthodox Jewish parents in 1869 in Kovno, in the Russian Empire (now Kaunas, Lithuania). In 1885, Goldman emigrated to the United States, where she…
Read More…remained by the summer. More on Jewish history in Greenwich Village and the East Village Jewish Synagogues Tour page on Village Preservation’s East Village Building Blocks Site While 19th-century Jewish…
Read More…of the IWO/JPFO’s war effort campaign to buy Jewishly named tanks for the Soviet Union to support the appeal made by the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee of the USSR (JAFC). 80…
Read More…their special histories, and reveal their (sometimes hidden) connections to the Village. Congregation Shearith Israel, now located at 2 West 70th Street, takes pride in being the very first Jewish…
Read More…Irving Berlin at his piano Jewish New Yorkers were shaped by – and themselves shaped – Christmas. The best example of this is Russian Jewish Immigrant Irving Berlin, who is…
Read More…and the Lower East Side, which in the early 20th century contained what was by many accounts the largest Jewish community in the world. Ahead, we take a look at…
Read More…Society was established to spread education and a love of reading in working-class Jewish communities. The Society’s namesake was Grace Aguilar, a widely-published Jewish woman of letters. Originally Sephardic Jews,…
Read More…Rite of Passage or Jewish Gangsters of the Lower East Side. Clockwise from upper left: Hebrew Actor’s Union; Moishe’s; Yiddish Art Theater; Cafe Royal. The former home of Jewish anarchist/feminist Emma…
Read More…Jewish Gangsters of the Lower East Side. Clockwise from upper left: Hebrew Actor’s Union; Moishe’s; Yiddish Art Theater; Cafe Royal. The former home of Jewish anarchist/feminist Emma Goldman. The Synagogues of…
Read More…of Jewish emancipation and acculturation in Central Europe during the late 18th Century, and how it innovated Jewish religious practices like egalitarian seating. Temple Emanu-El was a trailblazing community of…
Read More…this exciting, free program. Established in 1892, the mission of the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS) is to foster awareness and appreciation of American Jewish heritage and to serve as…
Read More…celebrations. Dr. Horatio Gomez was a 19th-century doctor who could trace his Jewish lineage to Abraham Haim de Ludena, one of the original Sephardic Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Dutch…
Read More…New York’s Jewish history. Anna Sokolow was the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, but it is not solely her heritage that has placed her on this tour. Her work drew…
Read More…the lens of a Jewish-American family, something that had not ever really been done before. As Dr. Hasia Diner expressed in her book Lower East Side Memories: A Jewish Place…
Read More…the lens of a Jewish-American family, something that had not ever really been done before. As Dr. Hasia Diner expressed in her book Lower East Side Memories: A Jewish Place…
Read More…Neighborhood Association Fiske Terrace Association Sunnyside Gardens Preservation Alliance WE ACT for Environmental Justice Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy Friends of Petrosino Square Friends of West Park Crown Heights North…
Read More…City housed the largest Jewish population in the world. Many of those Jewish immigrants originally settled in the Lower East Side, which includes what we today call the East Village….
Read More…but they also illustrate the role of women in Jewish movies. Vassar professor Peter Antelyes posits that the representation of the Jewish woman, especially in a diversifying urban world, formed…
Read More…a wealthy Sephardic Jewish family. Lazarus, who’s been called a reclusive spinster, was a lifelong Villager, descended from some of the first Jewish Portuguese immigrants to the New World. She…
Read More…a reclusive spinster, was a lifelong Villager, descended from the first twenty-three Jewish immigrants to New Amsterdam from Brazil (though Lazarus also had some Ashkenazi Jewish lineage on her mother’s…
Read More…Photos and Tours. Sources: “Edith Halpert and the Rise of American Art” Exhibition at the Jewish Museum The Jewish Women’s Archive Oral History interview with Edith Gregor Halpert, 1962-1963, Smithsonian…
Read More…few of the sites within the Greenwich Village Historic District where landmarks of our nation’s rich and varied immigrant history can be found, from the oldest surviving Jewish cemetery in the…
Read More…middle ages and the boiled preparation of which resembles that of the bagel. Puglia had a significant Jewish community at the time, suggesting a possible connection between the tarello and…
Read More…on this Jewish theater history!). As discussed in a 2007 New York Times article, traditional Jewish delis have been disappearing at an alarming rate. Perhaps due to the loss of…
Read More…— the largest Jewish community in the world at the time, in fact. Joel Russ was one of hundreds of thousands of Eastern European Jewish immigrants that crowded into the…
Read MoreAndy Statman, who plays mandolin and clarinet, photographed by Christoph Giese in 2012 for his NEA National Heritage Fellowship. “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s real Jewish…
Read More…two rows of granite stars bearing the names of the best and brightest Jewish performers. Over 30 Jewish artists were memorialized in this way. Unfortunately the Second Avenue Deli closed…
Read More…it’s named for someone who played a rather large and inspiring role in the lives of so many in our city. Gustave Hartman, a Jewish municipal court judge, educator, activist,…
Read More…in 1910 and operated as a Jewish day school from 1928 to 1974. It was widely known as one of the major educational institutions of the Jewish East Side. After…
Read More…City: Jewish Street Photographers of Mid-Century New York (2023), extends her interest in urban Jewish history to photography. Currently she serves as editor in chief of The Posen Library of…
Read More…Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) became an advocate for poor Jewish refugees and helped establish the Hebrew Technical Institute of New York to provide vocational training for destitute Jewish immigrants. As a…
Read More…led to the emergence of a vibrant arts scene, with avant-garde theaters, experimental art galleries, and underground music venues popping up throughout the neighborhood. Jewish American Heritage Month Jewish Americans…
Read More…of Villager Edna St. Vincent Millay, have hugely impacted this art form. Click here to enter the Theaters tour 10. Jewish History Greenwich Village is steeped in Jewish history, from…
Read More…out to more established Jewish residents in New York. For example, in 1924, he raised $1.25 million as president of the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies. This…
Read More…amidst Old and New Law tenements. It’s a small but striking reminder of a time when New York was home to the second largest Jewish community in the world, and…
Read More…In the 1930s and 1940s, Schneiderman got involved in the American Jewish efforts to rescue Jewish refugees from Europe. Schneiderman never married, but we know that she had relationships with…
Read More…But scratch the surface of this architectural oddity and you’ll find a winding history replete with Jewish gangsters, German teetotalers, jazz-playing hipsters, and the American debut of one of Britain’s…
Read More…a living reality. It became the first Jewish congregation in New York City to open a homeless shelter and was progressive in its long-standing outreach to the non-Jewish community. Its…
Read More…of war for living conditions hoarsely.” The attendees took a traditional Jewish oath of solidarity, then and there, affirming: “If I turn traitor to the cause I now pledge, may my…
Read More…the Grid is the theater drawings of Anthony F. Dumas. From the Jewish Rialto along lower Second Avenue to the little gems hidden in the nooks and crannies of the…
Read More…Jewish theater district on Second Avenue, the union also served Jewish actors across the country. As the union’s home for nearly 80 years, the HAU is an integral part of…
Read More…from its years as a working port, to its shift to a point of entry for waves of immigrants, to its role at the heart of the largest Jewish community…
Read More…East Cinemas. Byzantine-style detail on the arched windows In the first few decades of the Twentieth Century, this stretch of Second Avenue was referred to as the Jewish Rialto because of…
Read More…these origins), eventually ended up in New York, becoming the first Jewish settlers of our city, long before the flood of Ashkenazi Jews (Jews with roots in Germany who settled…
Read More…This incredibly rich, multi-layered community was home to some remarkably beautiful houses of worship with stained glass, turrets, and more still visible. While many of these Jewish spaces are now…
Read More…and Schneider and Herter tenements were often marketed to Jewish immigrants. Ross and Monica were supposed to be Jewish, so their grandmother likely was as well. And Geller is a…
Read More…Collections. The International Workers Order originated within the Jewish Workmen’s Circle, but split off from its parent organization shortly after its founding in 1930. Over the course of its lifetime,…
Read More…Jewish congregation in New York City to open a homeless shelter and was also progressive in their longstanding outreach to the non-Jewish community, including joint classes and celebrations with other…
Read More…a lifelong Villager, descended from some of the first Jewish Portuguese immigrants to the New World. She was the fourth of seven children in a prosperous Sephardic Jewish family, but…
Read More…we are his legacy…” Joe Papp’s journey began as Yussel Papirovsky, the son of impoverished Jewish immigrants, on June 22, 1921. His mother left Lithuania as a 15-year-old orphan and…
Read More…Jewish Rialto because of the many Yiddish language theaters and businesses connected to Jewish entertainment. The Yiddish Art Theater housed elaborate productions from Maurice Schwartz and his troupe, including The…
Read More…After the Society sold the property in 1925 to Darchei Noam, the building functioned as a Jewish center, with classes for Jewish Immigrants. By the 1950s the East Side Hebrew…
Read More…buildings between different faiths are a distinctive feature of this area, points out Laurie Tobias Cohen, executive director of the Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy. The Lower East Side/East Village…
Read More…above. Hannah was of German Jewish heritage. When they married in 1918, they lived in a five-story tenement at 65 Avenue C (between East 4th and 5th Streets). Their marriage…
Read More…community regulations of Krakow, Poland. The world’s biggest bagel factory is in Illinois. Still, no other food is so associated with New York as the “Jewish English muffin,” which spread…
Read More…when the church was converted to a synagogue, reflecting the neighborhood’s transition to the world’s largest Jewish community. Significantly, the building has not only directly served Germans and Jews, but…
Read More…an art student and a Jewish refugee of WWI in 1921. Through his art and his foundation – the wonderful Renee and Chaim Gross Foundation – he remains here with…
Read More…the investigation of the Watergate break-in on the false grounds that it would uncover national security operations. Bella Abzug Bella Abzug speaking at Rally to Impeach Nixon. Image via Jewish…
Read More…assassination was blamed on “foreign influence agents” (i.e. Jews). Over the next few years, over 200 anti-Jewish pogroms and riots took place and the government passed laws against the Jews,…
Read More…and Director of The Gotham Center for New York City History), Laurie Tobias Cohen (Executive Director of the Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy), Zia Ziprin (fashion designer), Steve Wishnia (journalist…
Read More…immigrants and many others. In 1984, Second Avenue Deli owner Abe Lebewohl installed a memorial to honor the stars of this once-thriving Jewish theater scene in the sidewalk outside his…
Read More…buildings between different faiths are a distinctive feature of this area, points out Laurie Tobias Cohen, executive director of the Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy. The Lower East Side/East Village…
Read More…publishing history and Jewish history. Henry Roth (1906-1995) wrote his novel, Call it Sleep, in 1934, based on his own experience as a young Jewish immigrant child living on the Lower East Side. To this day,…
Read More…his family, and his friendships with other Jewish immigrants. Join us this Jewish History Month to celebrate 100 years since Gross’s arrival in New York and to explore his unique…
Read More…Russian Jewish immigrant family who ran a small grocery store, he attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, City College of New York, and Columbia for his Masters. His output…
Read More…and commitment to democracy and the United States. Sam Milgrom to Rubin Saltzman Regarding a Jewish Magazine, October 1944 (correspondence). Letter courtesy of Cornell Library. In the 1940s, the Jewish…
Read More…website. To learn about more Jewish history in the Greenwich Village Historic District, take the Jewish History tour here. To learn more about the history of Shearith Israel and its…
Read More…essayist of Sephardic Jewish descent perhaps best known for her book The Spirit of Judaism that she published at the age of 26. The Aguilar Library at East 5th Street…
Read More…1925–26 for a Jewish community leader and Brooklyn lawyer named Louis Jaffe. The theater offered elaborate productions under the direction of well-known Yiddish actor Maurice Schwartz, such as 1928’s The…
Read More…he was the first Mayor to serve three terms, and the first of either Italian or Jewish descent. It was LaGuardia’s achievements as mayor, and his birth in the South…
Read More…in the harbor and shape its identity as a symbol of hope to millions. Photo of Emma Lazarus, courtesy of the American Jewish Historical Society Lazarus wrote the poem from…
Read More…in the rounded window pediments on the 4th floor. The base of this building was once the home of the Cafe Royal, a gathering space for Jewish artists and writers…
Read More…Jewish American Heritage Month, and we have many ways for you to explore, from our Jewish History Tour on our Greenwich Village Historic District Map (which includes links in our neighborhood to the very…
Read More…of the world’s largest Jewish communities. The building is known today as the Community Synagogue Max D. Raiskin Center. Bodies washed up on the shore (image courtesy NYPL) The General…
Read MoreRecently, our fellow-blogger friend, Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York, noted that the facade of the East Village building that is home to Moishe’s Jewish bakery had gotten a facelift. He asked,…
Read More…the community regulations of Krakow, Poland. The world’s biggest bagel factory is in Illinois. Still, no other food is so associated with New York as the “Jewish English muffin,” which…
Read More…early on with the Village and Bohemian life. Her rise in the ad world doesn’t stop her from forming a relationship with Abe, a Jewish freelance writer. See historic 1960s…
Read More…Street entrance, with the “Talmud Torah Darchei Noam” name added after the Jewish center bought the building in 1925. The Lodging for Boys, commonly called “the Newsboys Home,” had several…
Read More…24, she moved to New York’s Lower East Side and worked at the Jewish Daily News. Two years later she married J.G. Phelps Stokes, a wealthy Episcopalian philanthropist whom she…
Read More…meal at B&H as well. Whether or not they come for the kashrut, customers are mad for B&H. The vegetarian menu includes Jewish-Polish-Ukrainian soul food like pierogis, knishes, blintzes, borscht…
Read More…on. You can take a walking tour of Colonial Jewish New Amsterdam, learn the history of restaurants in Chinatown, or watch films about notable local artists like Richard Foreman or…
Read More…place 30 years ago this month, four Palestinian gunmen terrorized passengers aboard the Achille Lauro, killing one Jewish man on October 8, 1985: Leon Klinghoffer, 69, whom they shot and…
Read More…of 6th Avenue on 11th Street is the Second Cemetery of Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue, Shearith Israel, the second cemetery installment of the Congregation Shearith Israel, a congregation of Sephardic Jewish immigrants…
Read More…City once a year throughout her childhood, staying with family at her former 108 East 4th Street home. Gloria has fond memories of the Jewish neighborhood and Jewish delis on…
Read More