April 21, 2024

Vol. 5, No. 16



The Early 1970s:

Parking

Jewish Encyclopedia:

National Radical Folkshule

Resources:

The Status of Women in Jewish Organizations of Pittsburgh

Exhibits:

A Woman's Place

Abrams House

Calendar:

April 22-30: Passover

May 5-10: JGS: Ukraine Week



Community:

URA photographs

SHHS archives

"How We Got Here"

JCBA "Road-Trip"

Research Tools:

Newspapers, Cemeteries,

Memorial Plaques, Books,

Population Figures, Synagogues, Newsletter Archive,

Shul Records America

The Early 1970s:

Parking

Advertisement announcing the new Mid-Murray Parking Lot at Murray and Douglas in Squirrel Hill, including a list of local merchants benefitted by the project—July 2, 1970.

—Jewish Chronicle

Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project

The car helped create Squirrel Hill. The northern half of the neighborhood grew after the city opened Bigelow Boulevard in 1901. The southern half of Squirrel Hill grew as the city built the Boulevard of the Allies throughout the 1920s. 

Like most of Pittsburgh proper, though, Squirrel Hill wasn’t designed for widespread automobile ownership. By the 1960s, the neighborhood had more than 30,000 people, as well as a prominent business district doing $18 million in annual sales and bringing hundreds to the neighborhood each day. There was persistent tension during business hours between locals who parked in the neighborhood all day and the visiting shoppers who parked for an hour or two.

To better accommodate the shoppers, the city metered Murray Avenue between Forward and Forbes. This pushed all-day parking further from the business district. By the late 1960s, though, commercial traffic was exceeding the available parking spaces. Shoppers started using unmetered side streets. A traffic study commissioned by the city in mid-1967 found that approximately 10 percent of all parked cars in the Squirrel Hill were parked illegally—either double-parked, parked at corners, or blocking hydrants or driveways.

The report made several recommendations to improve parking in the neighborhood: adding evening hours of operation to meters along Murray Avenue, shortening the time available on meters near certain high-traffic businesses like the Post Office, adding a small selection of meters to side streets, and reconsidering the flow of one-way traffic intersecting Murray Avenue. Some of these ideas went into effect and be still be seen today.

The most lasting legacy of this campaign was new parking lots. Of the five city-owned lots in Squirrel Hill today, four were built in the 1960s and early 1970s.

[RIGHT] Advertisement for the Coach House noting new Forbes-Shady lot—Nov. 19, 1965.

[LEFT] Campaign advertisement for Hy Gershuny, noting support for Mid-Murray Parking Lot— and removal of parking meters in residential sections of Squirrel Hill—Nov. 3, 1967.

—Jewish Chronicle

Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project

1) Between Beacon and Bartlett streets behind Murray Avenue

(71 spaces)

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Squirrel Hill Board of Trade financed about a third of the $150,000 cost of this lot by purchasing bonds. The funds went toward acquiring and demolishing two houses and repaving the area.

2) Shady Avenue behind Forbes Avenue

(61 spaces)

Sometime between 1957 and 1965, a large building set back from the northwest corner of Forbes and Shady was demolished, making room for a new office building with a metered lot behind it. By the early 1970s, Forbes Avenue also had at least two private lots. Little’s Shoes owned one at 5844 Forbes Ave., and Guaranty Savings & Loan owned the other at 5861 Forbes Ave.

3) Between Phillips Avenue and Douglas Street behind Murray Avenue (44 spaces)

Following an effort to improve parking in the downtown and Oakland business districts in the 1960s, the city turned to residential neighborhoods. The 1969 capital budget included $1,632,000 for new parking lots in East Liberty, the North Side, and Brookline, as well as two new lots for Squirrel Hill. 

The first was the Mid-Murray parking lot. Using existing funds and merchants’ loans, the city purchased five houses behind the former Rhoda’s Delicatessen.

Around the same time, a business called “Gay’s Two-Hour Valet.” opened across the street at 2204 Murray Ave. It later became “Gay’s One-Hour Valet.”

4) Beneath the Squirrel Hill branch of the Carnegie Library

(72 spaces)

The second lot was part of the new Squirrel Hill library. The library was touted at the time as an innovative development combining a public library, commercial rentals, an open plaza, and a parking garage into one structure. It opened in 1972 and was supposed to be replicated in other neighborhoods.

5) Beneath the Jewish Community Center

(70 spaces)

The final city parking lot in Squirrel Hill was developed in the 1980s, as part of the reconstruction of the Jewish Community Center at Murray and Forbes. The JCC was looking to expand at the time and had been considering various locations throughout the neighborhood. Around the same time, the Pittsburgh Parking Authority was looking to build a new parking lot on Darlington Street. 

An agreement in 1985 created the current arrangement: a city-owned parking lot beneath the new Irene Kaufmann Building with an entrance on Forbes Avenue. The lot on Darlington became the Alex and Leona Robinson Building.

What does any of this have to do with Jewish history? 

In trying to understand how Squirrel Hill persisted as a Jewish neighborhood in the late 20th century, while many similar urban neighborhoods in other cities did not, these parking lots show city and community leaders responding to the rise of the suburbs. Parking lots don’t entirely explain the stability of Squirrel Hill, but they provide one noteworthy data point for further historical inquiry.

All year, the Rauh Jewish Archives is highlighting stories of Jewish life in Western Pennsylvania in the early 1970s. If you would like to donate a material from this time period, or any historically relevant materials documenting Jewish life in this region, contact the archive or call 412-454-6406.

Jewish Encyclopedia of Western Pennsylvania:

Jewish National Folk Shule

Advertisement for dinner to celebrate the opening of the Jewish National Folk School at 2223 Murray Ave.—October 14, 1932.

—Jewish Criterion

Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project

Before World War II, hundreds of local Jewish children attended Yiddish cultural schools known as “shuln.” These schools encouraged a mostly secular form of identity through the language, literature, and cultures of Ashkenazi Jewry. The definitive history is Fradle Pomerantz Freidenreich’s “Passionate Pioneers: The Story of Yiddish Secular Education in North America, 1910-1960.” Freidenreich spoke in Pittsburgh in April 2012 to discuss the book.

In her book, Freidenreich listed eight shuln in Pittsburgh: seven associated with local Jewish labor groups such as the Poale Zion, the Farband, the Workmen’s Circle, and the International Workers Order, as well as the independent Yehoash Folk Shule. Using improved search tools available since she conducted her research, we can now expand on the information in her book. 

Poale Zion was likely the first Labor Zionist organization in Pittsburgh, operating locally by 1905. It started the National Radical Folkshule in 1912 at the Irene Kaufmann Settlement House in the Hill District with some 50 students. Pittsburgh hosted the international Poale Zion convention in 1913. The school closed soon after, apparently due to lack of funding. 

A coalition including the Poale Zion, the Jewish National Workers Alliance (also known as the Farband), and the Pioneer Women’s Organization (later known as Na’amat) revived the project in August 1932 with the Jewish National Folk Shule. The school was located at 2223 Murray Ave. in Squirrel Hill.

Under the direction of teacher Louis Levin, the school taught “Yiddish and Hebrew reading, writing, and literature, Jewish history from the earliest period to the present time, Jewish nursery rhymes, songs, and folklore,” as well as Jewish holidays and Jewish current events. The school regularly held communitywide celebrations for Chanukah, Tu B’shvat, Purim, and Passover, often overseen by an associated Mother’s Club. The Jewish National Folk Shule closed sometime after 1937, according to local newspaper notices. 

Resources:

“The Status of Women

in Jewish Organizations of Greater Pittsburgh”

“We are all aware of the talent, energies, and countless hours contributed by women to our community. Jewish women have been responsible for initiating some of our most far-sighted and valuable communal programs, and there is general agreement that the work of women has been the backbone of our social, philanthropic, and educational services. Yet women have generally played a minimal role in the important decision-making boards and committees in the community…”

—from the introduction to

“The Status of Women in Jewish Organizations of Greater Pittsburgh.” 

Cover of “The Status of Women in Jewish Organizations of Greater Pittsburgh,”

featuring illustration of a figure in a dress with a Star of David against a red background.

The American Jewish Committee-Pittsburgh Chapter and the National Council of Jewish Women-Pittsburgh Section convened the Committee on the Role of Women in the late 1970s to study the gender diversity of local Jewish organizations. Under co-chairs Corinne Krause and Eileen Lane, the committee mailed a questionnaire to 84 local organizations, requesting information about boards, officers, key committees, and paid professional positions. They compiled the 28 responses into a small booklet in 1980 titled, “The Status of Women in Jewish Organizations of Greater Pittsburgh.”

The booklet provides some important statistical information at a turning point in local Jewish women's history. At the end of the 1970s, no Jewish congregation within the city of Pittsburgh had ever elected a female president (although a few small town congregations had already reached this milestone). By the end of the 1980s, more than 10 local congregations representing all the major streams of Judaism had elected their first female president. 

NOW OPEN:

A Woman's Place: How Women Shaped Pittsburgh

“How Mrs. Enoch Rauh ushered in the year 1913 — on Dec. 31st 1912.”

—from Richard E. Rauh Papers [MSS 301]

From pioneering investigative journalism to leading their country to Olympic gold, Western Pennsylvania women have made an immeasurable impact in America, but too often, their stories have been overlooked.

The Heinz History Center is taking an unprecedented deep dive into the lives of these fierce and unflappable women who helped change the world inside a major new exhibition, A Woman’s Place: How Women Shaped Pittsburgh.

Take an interactive, thematic journey through Western Pennsylvania women’s history from the early 1800s to modern day that will showcase the stories of entrepreneurs and activists, artists and athletes, scientists and inventors, and changemakers and barrier breakers. Through more than 250 artifacts, immersive experiences, and striking archival images, A Woman’s Place will reveal how women have made Pittsburgh and the world a better place.  

Display:

The Abrams House

Color photograph of the Abrams House on Woodland Road—undated.

—from Abrams Family Papers [MSS 1288]

The Rauh Jewish Archives' Catelyn Cocuzzi has curated a display of photographs and documents from the Abrams Family Papers [MSS 1288] looking at the conception and construction of the former Abrams House, a post-modern residence on Woodland Road in Squirrel Hill, designed by architect Robert Venturi. The next time you visit the Heinz History Center, please stop up to the Library & Archives on the sixth floor to see the display.

April 22-30

Passover

Black and white photograph of a model Passover seder for children from the Soviet Union who had recently resettled in Pittsburgh—1979.

—from Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh Records [MSS 287]

Passover begins this year the evening of Monday, April 22 and continues through the evening of Tuesday, April 30. The Rauh Jewish Archives phone and email lines will be closed this week Tuesday through Thursday but open on Friday, April 26. The Detre Library & Archives reading room and reference desk will be open normal hours Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Rauh Jewish Archives wishes you a chag sameach, a joyous festival.

May 5-10

JGS Pittsburgh Presents:

Ukraine Week

The Jewish Genealogy Society of Pittsburgh is hosting its spring special interest week from May 5-10, this time looking at Jewish genealogical resources from Ukraine. The week will include two programs (see below), an opportunity to meet with JGS Pittsburgh officers, and a display of rarely seen materials from the Rauh Jewish Archives of local Jewish organizations with ties to Ukraine.

You can visit the Rauh Jewish Archives to see the display and meet with JGS Pittsburgh during regular hours Wednesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Detre Library & Archives reading room is also open Saturday. Visiting the archive is free but does not include access to Heinz History Center exhibits.

May 5

Hal Bookbinder:

“Why did our Jewish ancestors leave the Pale?”

Jews were welcomed into the Polish principalities in the 1200s, most notably, by the Duke of Greater Poland, Bolesław the Pious. Thousands fleeing persecution and expulsions across Western Europe came. As Poland expanded to the east and south, Jews moved into Lithuanian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian lands. By 1800 there were more than a million Jews in the Pale. By 1900, they would number nearly five million. Jews flourished in the Pale, creating diverse religious, cultural, educational, and charitable institutions. Then, between 1881 and 1914 over two million left all that they had known for the West. This talk discusses how the Pale came to be, life in it and why this mass migration occurred. It breaks the 120-year history of the Pale into periods of creation, confinement, repression, enlightenment, pogroms, and chaos. There is much more to the story than the horrific pogroms at the turn of the 20th century.

Additional brief talk, “My 5th Great Grandfather’s Name”

The oldest family documentation that I have found is the 1850 Russian Revision List (census) for Dubno which lists my 3rd great-grandfather (who had died in 1848) and my 2nd great-grandfather (who, as a young man, was now head of the family). Unlike censuses, revision lists included information on residents who had died since the previous revision list. Based on the patronymic middle name of my 3rd great-grandfather, I had the name, if nothing more, of my 4th great-grandfather. The records office in Dubno, where the Bookbinders lived, was destroyed during World War II and all records contained there were lost. The regional archive in Rivne has no earlier records. So far as I know, no records exist for my 5th great-grandfather. So, I developed a hypothesis as to his name and the approximate dates of his birth and death. You might use the technique that I employed to do the same when no records can be found.

The program is on Sunday, May 5 from 1-3 p.m. ET. This is an online program, occurring exclusively on Zoom. The program will be recorded, and the recording will be made available to current JGS-Pittsburgh members. 

Hal Bookbinder is a retired information systems professional who continues to instruct at the university level. He has been actively researching his genealogy for more than three decades, identifying over 4,000 relatives and tracing two lines to the mid-1700s in modern Ukraine. He is past president of the JGS of Los Angeles and of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies. Hal publishes a series of monthly articles on safe computing which are freely available here. He and his wife, Marci, were raised in the Catskills of New York State, in the famed “Borsht Belt." After attending New York University and a four-year stint in the US Air Force, they have lived in the Los Angeles area. In 2018, he visited Ukraine, touring various areas of the former Volhynia and Podolia in which his family lived for hundreds of years.

May 8

Tammy Hepps:

“Putting Your Family in Context:

The History of Ukraine’s Jews”

Tammy Hepps will give an overview to the history of the region that has since 1991 comprised the country of Ukraine. She will explain the centuries of competition between powerful empires to dominate this region and the effects of this competition on the ethnic minorities caught in the middle. Within this context she will situate the experiences of your ancestors—both the revolutions in Jewish thought and practice they innovated, as well as the discrimination and violence that led to their mass emigration.

The program is on Wednesday, May 8 from 6-8 p.m. ET. This is an hybrid program, occurring in-person at the Detre Library & Archives on the sixth floor of the Heinz History Center and online by Zoom. The program will be recorded, and the recording will be made available to current JGS-Pittsburgh members. 

Tammy Hepps is a historian of the Jewish experience in Western Pennsylvania. She combines in-depth historical research with techniques from technology and genealogy to reconstruct overlooked stories from the past in an engaging way. She has presented her findings around the world, including the Library of Congress and the International Jewish Genealogy Conference in Jerusalem. Her best-known research is into the history of the Jewish community in the former steel-making center of Homestead, PA (see HomesteadHebrews.com). Tammy earned her AB in computer science from Harvard and is a Wexner Heritage Fellow.

Community

Urban Redevelopment Authority Archives

The City of Pittsburgh Archives has launched a new digital archive containing thousands of photographs and documents spanning more than two centuries. Of particular interest to local Jewish history is a collection of more than 2,000 photographs of properties in the lower Hill District taken by the Urban Redevelopment Authority in the late 1950s prior to demolitions in the area. 

Squirrel Hill Historical Society Archives

Squirrel Hill Historical Society has added a collection of 60 historic images of Squirrel Hill to the Historic Pittsburgh website. The collection contains selected images from three organizations: the Squirrel Hill Historical Society, Squirrel Hill Urban  Coalition, and Mary S. Brown Memorial-Ames United Methodist Church. The photographs document many aspects of life in Squirrel Hill, including many beloved businesses from the 1990s that no longer exist.

From the Jewish Genealogy Society of Pittsburgh

"How We Got Here"

Each family is unique. 

Each family has its own traditions, its own spirit, and its own dynamics. 

Despite all these differences, every Jewish family in Western Pennsylvania has at least one thing in common: They all have a story about how they got here.

Perhaps your family sailed in steerage across the Atlanti in the 19th century.

Or perhaps your family drove the Pennsylvania Turnpike in a station wagon in the 1960s to work for the universities and hospitals during Renaissance.

Or perhaps your arrival into one of the many Jewish communities of Western Pennsylvania involves marriage, or conversion, or a surprising DNA discovery.

Each of these stories is special, and each contributes to the larger story of our community. To collect and honor these origin stories, the Jewish Genealogy Society of Pittsburgh is launching a new initiative called “How We Got Here.” To participate, just write a short account explaining how you or your ancestors came to settle in Western Pennsylvania. All stories are welcome.

Stories will be eligible for inclusion in the JGS-Pittsburgh’s monthly newsletter Z’chor and also for preservation in the Rauh Jewish Archives. For more information about this initiative, or to contribute, contact Eric Lidji.

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. 

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 more than 2,700 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.

Synagogues

A database of buildings throughout Western Pennsylvania known to have hosted Jewish worship services. Includes links to photographs and citations with original source material. Database currently includes 90 locations from 2 institutions

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.

Shul Records America

Online finding aid from JewishGen listing congregational archival collections held at publicly accessible repositories across the United States. Includes 63 listings from the Rauh Jewish Archives, as well as other repositories with Western Pennsylvania congregational records.

The Rauh Jewish Archives was founded on November 1, 1988 to collect and preserve the documentary history of Jewish life in Western Pennsylvania and to make it available to the world through research assistance, programing, exhibits, publications, and partnerships.

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