Vol. 4

No. 20

Restaurants:

1808 Centre Ave.

The Jewish Encyclopedia:

Pittsburgh Youth Council

for Soviet Jewry

Yahrzeit Plaques:

Temple Ohav Shalom

Calendar:

May 21: W. Todd Knowles

June 11: Alex Calzereth

Community:

Under the Dome of Rodef Shalom

JCBA "Road-Trip"

Jewish Daily Forward exhibit

Mystery portraits

Research Tools:

Newspapers, Cemeteries,

Memorial Plaques, Books,

Population Figures, Newsletters

Restaurants:

1808 Center Ave.

Classified notice advertising lunchroom for sale at 1808 Center Ave, March 22, 1929.

—from Jewish Criterion

Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project

In the late 1910s and the 1920s, construction activities boomed all throughout Pittsburgh, including the Hill District. Some of the Hill District construction during that era was communal, like the Irene Kaufmann Settlement House auditorium and the Lando Theater. But the neighborhood also experienced some private residential and commercial construction during that decade.

We looked last week at 1800 Center. A small storefront was demolished in the 1920s to accommodate “The Metropolitan,” a three-story building with upstairs apartments and a restaurant and theater at street level. In current real estate lingo, we would call this a mixed-use development with an anchor tenant.

Display advertisement for M. Maretsky Sandwich Shop and Billiards Parlor at 1808 Center Ave. Includes congratulatory note for dedication of new Irene kaufmann Settlement House auditorium, Jan. 17, 1930.

—from Jewish Criterion

Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project

Something similar happened a few doors down, at 1808 Center Ave.

In a 1910 map, the address is three-story building occupying the front half of a long lot. In the next available map, from 1923, a large apartment building fills the entire lot. From the available records, it’s difficult to tell for sure whether the new and expanded building was built before or after Joseph and Slima Marcovitz purchased the property from Louis Goldvarg in 1918.

For the first few years, cleaners occupied the commercial space at the ground floor of the building. Then, from 1923 through at least 1930, Morris Maretsky ran a billiards parlor and sandwich shop. The Marcovitz’s sold the property at 1808 Center Ave. in a sheriff’s sale in late 1932 or early 1933. The foreclosure may have been prompted by the local banking crisis of the previous autumn.

Display advertisement announcing the opening of Canter & Cohen restaurant and delicatessen at 1808 Center Ave., under the supervision of Sarah Canter, Jan. 8, 1937.

—from Jewish Criterion

Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project

Other restaurants occupied the street-level space for brief increments throughout the 1930s, including the Manhattan Restaurant in 1936 and Canter & Cohen’s for a few months in 1937. Canter and Cohen dissolved around the time of the death of Sam Canter and the opening of the new Canter’s Restaurant on Atwood Street in Oakland, run by his son Jack E. Canter.

Next Week: One more from the 1800 Block

All year, the Rauh Jewish Archives is highlighting Jewish restaurants in Western Pennsylvania. If you would like to donate a material from a Jewish restaurant, or just reminisce, contact the archive or call 412-454-6406.

Jewish Encyclopedia of Western Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh Youth Council for Soviet Jewry

Black and white photograph showing a student rally in support of Soviet Jewry. Students represent local chapters of the United Synagogue Youth and the Pennsylvania Federation of Temple Youth. Rally occurred outside the Hebrew Institute building, Jan. 12, 1967.

—from Jewish Chronicle Records [MSS 906].

The Pittsburgh Youth Council for Soviet Jewry was a student group created to raise awareness of the persecution of Jews living in the Soviet Union.

Jewish youth groups in Pittsburgh began protesting the treatment of Soviet Jews as early as January 1967. The Pittsburgh Youth Council for Soviet Jewry emerged in late 1967 or 1968 to better coordinate the work of these groups, including students from B’nei Akiva, Masada, United Synagogue Youth, Pennsylvania Federation of Temple Youth, B’nai B’rith Youth Organization, Young Judaea, Hillel Academy, and the Hebrew Institute. Each group submitted representatives to the larger council. The Jewish Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation sponsored the organization.

Our entry for the Pittsburgh Youth Council for Soviet Jewry includes a photograph of a 1967 rally, its statement of demands, and newspaper articles.

Yahrzeit Plaques Project:

195 records added

Memorial board from North Hills Jewish Community Center (Temple Ohav Shalom).

The Western Pennsylvania Yahrzeit Plaques database now contains 1,908 records from six institutions. We recently added 195 plaques from seven memorial boards from Temple Ohav Shalom in the North Hills of Pittsburgh. The plaques were transcribed by Rauh Jewish Archives volunteer Kathy Holter.

We’ve also added a new index, making it easier to see which institutions are currently included in the database, when the plaques were last photographed, and who undertook the photography, transcription, and editing.

We are actively transcribing yahrzeit plaques from congregations from throughout the region. Each month, we’ll use this space in the newsletter to report on additions to the database. We are currently working through a backlog of nearly 20,000 individual records. The more help we have, the quicker we’ll go. We’re currently looking for volunteers who can read and transcribe Hebrew names and Hebrew dates. Work can be completed remotely or in-person at the Archive. To volunteer, email us or call 412-454-6406.

May 21:

JGS-Pittsburgh presents:

"Using FamilySearch for Jewish Research"

with W. Todd Knowles

Billions of family records. Where do you start?

FamilySearch is an international, nonprofit dedicated to helping all people discover their family story. It is one of the largest genealogical websites online and grows larger every day. Learn how to make the most of the FamilySearch collection, with a special focus on locating Jewish ancestors among the records.

The program is Sunday, May 21 from 1:00-3:00 p.m. ET. This is a virtual program, occurring exclusively online. The program will be recorded, and the recording will be made available to current JGS-Pittsburgh members.

“Using FamilySearch for Jewish Research with W. Todd Knowles” is a collaboration between the Jewish Genealogy Society of Pittsburgh and the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center. Please register online. 

The program is free for JGS-Pittsburgh members and $5 for the general public. To become a member of the JGS-Pittsburgh and receive a free membership code for this program, please visit its website.

This program is possible through the support of the William M. Lowenstein Genealogical Research Endowment Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation.

W. Todd Knowles, AG, is a Deputy Chief Genealogical Officer at FamilySearch, where he has been for almost 25 years. Soon after being introduce to family history at the age of 12, he discovered his Jewish roots. The journey to find these Polish Jews led to the Knowles Collection, six databases containing the records of almost 1.5 million people. His blog about the collection can be found at knowlescollection.blogspot.com.

June 11:

JGS-Pittsburgh presents:

"Mapping Your Family History"

with Alex Calzereth

Create maps with your own data on Google MyMaps.

This presentation will teach you how to create a custom map, import location data associated with family history events or source records and then customize the appearance of that data on the map. Custom maps can be used in many ways, including visually conveying family migration patterns, showing the location of regional cemeteries, or which towns hold certain vital records. Resulting maps can also be imported into Google Earth.

The program is Sunday, June 11 from 1:00-3:00 p.m. ET. This is a virtual program, occurring exclusively online. The program will be recorded, and the recording will be made available to current JGS-Pittsburgh members.

“Mapping Your Family History with Alex Calzereth” is a collaboration between the Jewish Genealogy Society of Pittsburgh and the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center. Please register online. 

The program is free for JGS-Pittsburgh members and $5 for the general public. To become a member of the JGS-Pittsburgh and receive a free membership code for this program, please visit its website.

This program is possible through the support of the William M. Lowenstein Genealogical Research Endowment Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation.

Alex Calzareth is a genealogist focusing on Southwest Germany, the Czech Republic and Southern Italy who began researching his family roots twenty-five years ago. He is a board member for Reclaim The Records and the Jewish Genealogy Society of Long Island, serving as JGSLI’s webmaster. Alex is also the JewishGen Research Director for Germany. He lives in New York City and works as a CPA.

Community

From NEXT Pittsburgh

"What's Under the Dome at Rodef Shalom?"

NEXT Pittsburgh's Boaz Frankel visits with archivist Martha Berg to discover the secrets of Rodef Shalom Congregation's historic Fifth Avenue synagogue.

From the Jewish Cemetery & Burial Association

"Road Trip: The Jewish Cemeteries of Western Pennsylvania"

The Jewish Cemetery and Burial Association of Greater Pittsburgh has released a new documentary showcasing Jewish cemeteries in Western Pennsylvania.

“Road Trip: The Jewish Cemeteries of Western Pennsylvania” is a one-hour tour of the many cemetery properties overseen by the JCBA, as well as an overview of the organization’s ongoing work to care for these sacred burial grounds. The video is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate these special Jewish cultural sites in our region. The video includes many historic photographs and documents from the collections of the Rauh Jewish Archives. 

From the Jewish Studies Program

PRESSED: Images from the Jewish Daily Forward

Detail from front page of Jewish Daily Forward, including photograph showing President and First Lady Kennedy, 1960.

Founded in 1897 on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the Jewish Daily Forward became the most widely read Jewish news source anywhere. By the 1920s, this Yiddish-language daily had more readers than the New York Times. With rigorous reporting, incisive editorials and powerful commentary, the Forward chronicled the events that affected immigrants eager to earn their place in American life. This was the paper read by congregants from its neighborhood’s many synagogues, by families squeezing into tenement apartments, by sweatshop workers and pushcart vendors. Its articles were debated on park benches and at local haunts like the Garden Cafeteria and the Royal Café, its discarded pages then used to wrap fish for Friday night Sabbath eve dinners. The Forward’s ideals have been held dear for generations of readers, not just on the Lower East Side but across the country and around the world.

The new exhibit Pressed at Hillman Library on the University of Pittsburgh campus looks into the vast Forward archive to present a selection of metal plates used to print photographs in the paper from the 1920s to the 1960s. These plates are accompanied by prints made just for this exhibition. These prints have rendered the images with greater clarity than they had as dotted, halftone prints in the newspaper. The Forward pages on which some of these images appeared are also displayed. These pages are enlarged and reproduced from microfilm and photographs because printed copies of the newspaper have not been preserved at the Forward or in any other archive, although they occasionally pop up at auction or in private collections. Together these images of strikes and activists, Yiddish theater stars and baseball players, daily life and historic moments, present the depth and breadth of this singular publication, its audience and Jewish life in America and around the world.

Pressed is organized by the Forward in collaboration with the Museum at Eldridge Street, and hosted by the University of Pittsburgh Library System and the Jewish Studies program. It will remain on display through April 2023.

As part of the exhibit, the Rauh Jewish Archives has created a display surveying the history of local Yiddish newspapers in Pittsburgh. The display includes enlarged reproductions of pages and advertisements from The Volksfreund, the Jewish Indicator, and the regional office of the Forward.

From Rodef Shalom Congregation

A mystery in primary colors

The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle reports on an effort by Rodef Shalom Congregation to identify two people from a pair of mid-19th century portraits in the congregation's holdings. Do you recognize these two people?

Research Tools

The Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project contains digitized, searchable copies of four local English-language Jewish newspapers between 1895 and 2010. It is a valuable tool for researching almost any topic about Jewish history in Western Pennsylvania. For a primer on using the website, watch our video.

Western Pennsylvania Jewish Cemetery Project

The Rauh Jewish Archives launched the Western Pennsylvania Jewish Cemetery Project in 1998 to preserve burial records from Jewish cemeteries across the region. Over a period of fifteen years, the information was compiled into a searchable, online database containing approximately 50,000 burial records from 78 Jewish cemeteries throughout the region.

Western Pennsylvania Yahrzeit Plaques Project

The Rauh Jewish Archives launched the Western Pennsylvania Yahrzeit Plaques Project in 2020. The goal was to create a comprehensive collection of burial records from memorial boards at synagogues across the region. Volunteers are currently transcribing these boards and records are being added monthly to our online database. The database currently contains almost 400 listings.

Rauh Jewish Archives Bibliography

University of Pittsburgh librarian and Rauh Jewish Archives volunteer Laurie Cohen created this comprehensive bibliography of the Rauh Jewish Archives library holdings from 1988 through 2018. It lists nearly 350 volumes arranged by type and then by subject. This a great tool to use early in your research process, as you’re surveying available resources on a given subject.

Jewish Population Estimates

Looking to figure out how many Jews lived in a certain part of Western Pennsylvania at a certain moment in time? This bibliography includes more than 30 estimates of the Jewish population of Pittsburgh and small-towns throughout the region, conducted between 1852 and 2017.

Rauh Jewish Archives Newsletter

The Rauh Jewish Archives has been publishing a weekly newsletter since 2020. The newsletter contains a variety of articles about local Jewish history, including much original research not found anywhere else. You can find and read every issue—more than 150!— in our new index.