Vol. 4

No. 10

In this issue...

Restaurants:

Abrams & Friedman


The Jewish Encyclopedia:

Caravan of Hope


Neighborhoods:

Manchester


Calendar:

March 6-7: Purim

Mar. 26: Remembering Kaufmann's


Community:

Shantytown

Jewish Daily Forward exhibit

Mystery portraits


Research Tools:

Newspapers, Cemeteries, Memorial Plaques, Books, Newsletters

Restaurants:

Abrams & Friedman

Façade of Abrams & Freidman restaurant at 2016 Murray Avenue following a renovation.

—from Squirrel Hill News, August 8, 1940 (online—Historic Pittsburgh)

Isadore Lampel’s journey through the restaurant world culminated at 2016-2018 Murray Ave., where he operated from 1945 until his death in 1950. 


For the previous decade, that Murray Avenue address had been Abrams & Freidman restaurant. Samuel Abrams and Eugene Friedman acquired the former Recht’s Restaurant & Steak House at 2016 Murray Ave. in May 1935. Friedman had previously been associated with Caplan’s Restaurant in Uptown, and Abrams had previously worked at restaurants in East Liberty.

Advertisement announcing Passover specials at Abrams & Friedman, 2016 Murray Ave.

—from Jewish Criterion, April 12, 1940 [Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project]

No known menus survive, but Abrams & Friedman advertisements regularly promoted a “kosher-style” menu including broiled steak, broiled liver sandwiches, roast stuffed chicken, and roast stuffed duck. The restaurant offered a special Passover menu, prepared in later years by Sarah Ungar, who went on to create the Little Hungarian Restaurant on Bartlett Street.

Advertisements also show another side of the restaurant business. Cuisine wasn’t the only draw. Restaurants often spent considerable resources to modernize and promote. 


Abrams & Freidman expanded into a neighboring building in 1938 to create an "annex" with a 150-seat dining room. It was billed at the time as the largest dining room in Squirrel Hill and was used for special events. They renovated the building again in 1939 to install an air conditioning unit, and they updated the facade in 1940 with a Moderne/Art Deco design.


Abrams retired in late 1943. Friedman operated independently for one year before selling the business in 1945 to Isadore Lampel and a “Mr. Goldberg.”

Advertisement announcing the addition to air conditioning at Abrams & Friedman.

—Jewish Criterion, February 9, 1939 [Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project]

Do you remember Abrams & Friedman?

Abrams & Friedman

Next week: A mystery partner.

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

Caravan of Hope

Photograph showing Pittsburgh Mayor David L. Lawrence (left) and Herman Fineberg (right) greeting an Israeli Lt. Col. Mati Dagan as part of the United Jewish Appeal’s Caravan of Hope railway tour.

—Herman and Rebecca Fineberg Papers and Photographs [MSS 730]

Caravan of Hope was a national railway tour organized by the United Jewish Appeal in support of its $250 million fundraising campaign to resettle Jewish refugees from Europe following World War II and to assist the new State of Israel. The Caravan of Hope was a speaker’s bureau traveling on a seven-car train outfitted with exhibits and displays. The 150-city tour included a stop in Pittsburgh on April 8-10, 1949. In addition to making the train available for visitors, the tour included interviews with local media, meetings with United Jewish Fund divisions, and various dinners and brunches in the city.

Caravan of Hope
The Jewish Encyclopedia of Western Pennsylvania brings together numerous online resources into a clearinghouse for conducting research about Jewish history in this region. As we migrate information to this new website, we’ll be announcing new entries and resources in this section of the newsletter.

Neighborhoods:

Manchester

High Holiday advertisement for Congregation Beth Jehuda in the Manchester neighborhood of the North Side of Pittsburgh. Features photograph of Rev. Alex Spokane.

—Jewish Criterion, August 27, 1926 [Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project]

We looked last month at the Jewish community of Deutschtown, a section of the North Side also known as East Allegheny. Jewish immigrants arrived in the area around East Ohio Street in the 1890s and coalesced into a community around 1907 with the establishment of Beth Israel Congregation, a Ladies Auxiliary, and a religious school for children. The community grew over the next two decades and then declined in the 1930s and 1940s, as families began leaving for larger Jewish neighborhoods like Squirrel Hill and East End.


As that group in Deutschtown was building its communal institutions in the 1900s, a second Jewish community was just coming into existence on the other end of Allegheny City, in a neighborhood now known as Manchester.


Manchester had been home to the original Jewish population of Allegheny City, a group associated with Rodef Shalom Congregation. As those German-Jewish families migrated to the East End in the early 20th century, Manchester gradually and increasingly became home to a different group of Jewish immigrants, those who had recently arrived from parts of Eastern Europe.

Photograph showing the side of the former Beth Jehuda Congregation synagogue at 1822 Chateau St. in the Manchester neighborhood of the North Side of Pittsburgh.

—Gerald Sapir Papers and Photographs [MSS 775]

This new group coalesced in the 1910s. They started the North Side Religious School in 1911 under the auspices of the Southwestern District of Pennsylvania Jewish Religious Schools program, and they founded Agudath Achim Congregation on Beaver Avenue in 1913. They renamed the congregation Beth Jehuda in 1915, following an auction where Rudolph Solomon purchased the right to name the congregation after his late father.


The first Beth Jehuda Congregation was located at 1428 Nixon St. The building has since been demolished, and no known photographs survive from its days as a synagogue. The congregation expanded through the 1920s and eventually outgrew its accommodations. It purchased and renovated a former church at 1822 Chateau St. in 1926. The congregation remained in the building until 1960, when it became the North Side Church of God. Even after selling the building, the congregation persisted as a legal entity for several years, making donations to local causes and even gathering occasionally for social functions.

Manchester
Calendar

March 6-7:

Purim

"Mordechai v'Esther Moftachem," profile of Mordechai and Esther, written for children.

—from The Jewish Indicator, 1927

Purim begins at sundown on March 6 and continues through sundown on March 7. The holiday commemorates the victory of the Jewish people over a genocidal plot in ancient Persia, in the era between the two Temples.


The protagonists of the story are Esther and Mordechai. The snippet above from the Jewish Indicator—a local Yiddish and Hebrew newspaper published locally in the 1920s—uses those figures to draw character lessons for children.

March 26:

JGS-Pittsburgh and the Rauh Jewish Archives present:

Once More Under the Clock: Remembering Kaufmann's

Photograph showing Kaufmann's Department Store on Smithfield Street in downtown Pittsburgh, during construction, July 19, 1913.

—from "Progress Photographs, Kaufmann’s Department Store [2008.0040]

Kaufmann’s Department Store holds a special place in Pittsburgh memory.


Kaufmann’s iconic clock, its decorated window displays, its special cultural exhibits, its dynamic promotional offers, and of course its beloved Tic Toc Restaurant, Arcade Bakery, and Vendome boutique—all recall a golden age of downtown retailing history. Starting from a small menswear store on the South Side in 1871, Kaufmann’s grew to become the largest department store in downtown Pittsburgh. In the years since its flagship building on Smithfield Street passed into new use in 2015, three books have been written locally about the legendary department store and the family behind it.


In Once More Under the Clock,” a special presentation hosted by the Jewish Genealogy Society of Pittsburgh and the Rauh Jewish Archives, the authors of all three books will offer insights into Kaufmann’s Department Store and the Kaufmann family. They’ll also share their favorite discoveries from the vast collection of Kaufmann’s materials held at the Rauh Jewish Archives.

The program will begin with a talk from journalists Marylynne Pitz and Laura Malt Schneiderman, authors of the new book “KAUFMANN’S, The Family That Built Pittsburgh’s Famed Department Store" (University of Pittsburgh Press). The book traces the Kaufmann family’s tremendous influence in the Pittsburgh region as retailers, philanthropists, and patrons of the arts and architecture. It also tells the decades-long story of the struggles and successes of a Jewish immigrant family in Pittsburgh.

Following the talk, Pitz and Schneiderman will join a panel discussion with Letitia Savage (author of the 2016 book "Kaufmann's: The Big Store in Pittsburgh") and Melanie Linn Gutowski (author of the 2017 book "Kaufmann’s Department Store." Together they’ll trade stories and insights from their research. Each author has chosen a selection of materials from the Kaufmann’s Department Store collections, all of which we be on display for one-day only.

The program is Sunday, March 26 from 11-1:00 p.m. ET. This is a hybrid program. It is designed for in-person attendance but will have a virtual option.


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

Register

Marylynne Pitz is an award-winning journalist covering art, architecture, books, and history. She was a member of the news team that won the Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Tree of Life shooting in 2018. She has won five Golden Quills, an Inland Press Association award for investigative reporting, and a Matrix Award. A native of Indianapolis, she has lived in Pittsburgh since 1980.


Laura Malt Schneiderman is a journalist and web developer in Pittsburgh. She has won seven Golden Quills and was part of a team that won the Scripps Howard Edward J. Meeman Award in 2011. Originally from Saint Louis, she has worked in journalism in Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.


Melanie Linn Gutowski is a historian and museum educator based in the Greater Pittsburgh area. She is the author of the pictorial histories “Pittsburgh’s Mansions” and “Kaufmann’s Department Store” (Arcadia Publishing).” A self-professed “Gilded Age geek,” Melanie is continually fascinated by American and European history and culture from 1865-1920, especially robber barons, historic homes and decorative arts. Melanie holds a Master’s degree in professional writing from Chatham University and a Bachelor of Arts in French and history of art & architecture from the University of Pittsburgh.


Letitia Savage published her first article while still in college, a chapter for an engineering book on the effects of oil spills on marine organisms. She continued freelance magazine writing while working as an environmental consultant, primarily on hazardous waste cleanups for the military and the USEPA. In addition to contributing environmental and gardening articles to Country Journal, she wrote about horse training and horse keeping for many national horse publications, including Chronicle of the Horse and Horse Illustrated. After years of magazine writing, Letitia published her first book on Kaufmann’s Department Store in Pittsburgh for Arcadia Press in 2016. She and her husband live in a pre-Civil War farmhouse that they restored in Sewickley.

Community

From the Pittsburgh Playwright Theatre Company

SHANTYTOWN

The Ballad of Fr. James Cox: A Musical

Father James Cox was the pastor of Old St. Patrick’s Church during the Great Depression. He printed the first food stamps, fed almost 3 million people, led a major march on our national’s capital with 25,000 jobless, and was even nominated for President. He was one of the first preachers on national radio, defended Jewish Americans, and went head-to-head against antisemites.


But who was the man behind it all?


“SHANTYTOWN: The Ballad of Fr. James Cox” explores the forgotten tale of Fr. Cox and celebrates what he accomplished—his courage, his ideas, his love for his people, his rise to near sainthood, and his survival of a federal trial for a lottery scam.


The musical also considers Father Cox's longstanding friendship with Henry Ellenbogen, using materials from the Rauh Jewish Archives.

Performances runs March 11-26 at Madison School, 3401 Milwaukee St.

Book, music and lyrics by Ray Werner

Composer and Music Director: Dwayne Fulton with arrangements by Mike Gallagher, Bruce Foley, Jerry McCarthy and Walter Woodward

Directed by Gregory Lehane

Learn More

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.

Learn More

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?

Read More

Research Tools

Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project

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.

Watch

Western Pennsylvania Jewish Cemetery Project

Use

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.

Use

Rauh Jewish Archives Bibliography

Use

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.

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.

Use
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[IMAGE: Marian Schreiber and employees at the Schreiber Trucking Company, c.1943—from Schreiber Family Papers and Photographs, MSS 846.]

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