Vol. 4

No. 21

Announcing:

"How We Got Here"

Restaurants:

1830 Centre Ave.

The Jewish Encyclopedia:

New Americans

Resettlement Committee

Article:

Bijou Theater, 1903

Calendar:

Today: W. Todd Knowles

May 26-27: Shavuot

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

Announcing:

"How We Got Here"

Each family is unique. 

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

Despite 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 Atlantic in the 19th century.

Or perhaps your family drove down the Pennsylvania Turnpike in a station wagon in the 1960s to work for the universities during the first 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 adds to the story of our community. 

To honor these stories, the Jewish Genealogy Society of Pittsburgh is launching a new initiative called “How We Got Here.” To participate, 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 the "How We Got Here" initiative, or to contribute an article, contact Eric Lidji at rjarchives@heinzhistorycenter.org or 412-454-6406.

Restaurants:

1830 Center Ave.

Advertisement announcing the opening of Weinstein Bros' restaurant and luncheonette at 1830 Center Ave., Sept. 14, 1923.

—from Jewish Criterion

Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project

If the success of a business really comes down to its location, then any business at 1830 Center Ave. in the 1920s had a good chance at success.

The address no longer exists today—it is now the parking lot to a shopping center in the middle of the Hill District. But decades ago, 1830 Center Ave. stood directly across from the Irene Kaufmann Settlement House at 1835 Center Ave.

You can imagine the flow of activity between one side of the street and the other: groups of kids grabbing a snack after Sunday basketball practice or theater rehearsal, staff taking a break in the middle of the day for lunch, families getting dinner after an evening show or night class.

There were three restaurants at 1830 Center Ave. in the '20s, '30s, and '40s.

The first was Weinstein’s Restaurant.

It operated at that address from about 1923 through 1936. Weinstein’s ended its tenure on Center Avenue in the mid-1930s, when it relocated to Squirrel Hill. We’ll look at the Weinstein’s story in greater depth later in the year.

By the mid-1930s, Squirrel Hill and Greenfield had become the largest Jewish population center in Pittsburgh. Those two neighborhoods were home to 40 percent of the total Jewish population of Pittsburgh, about 22,000 people. But the Hill District still had a large Jewish population, approximately 11,000 people—only slightly less than the Jewish population of Squirrel Hill today.

Beyond those who lived in the Hill District were the many who visited daily to attend programming at the Irene Kaufmann Settlement House, as well as the many business owners who continued commuting into the Hill District.

Advertisement announcing the opening of the Center Cafe and Restaurant at 1830 Center Ave., Dec. 18, 1936.

—from Jewish Criterion

Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project

The Center Café and Restaurant opened at 1830 Center Ave. in 1936 under the management of the Wisemen brothers. They sold the business the following year to industry veterans Abe Brody and Isadore Lampel. Lampel went independent in 1939, changing the name of the restaurant to Lampel's.

The Center Café and Restaurant/Lampel's offered full service, including a lunch menu targeting local businessmen in the Hill District and Fifth Avenue, full-course dinners for locals, and two large dining halls for special events. 

Judging by newspaper notices, “Lampel’s Hall” was popular among Jewish organizations looking to host lunch or dinner meetings. That began to change in the early 1940s, as the Jewish population of the Hill District rapidly declined.

A useful measurement of that population decline can be found in the citywide Jewish student surveys conducted by the Hebrew Institute every two years. According to those reports, the Hill District had 1,420 Jewish children in 1936 and only 380 by 1944, with the rate of decline increasing almost each year.

Additionally, with the founding of the Squirrel Hill Boys Club in 1942, the Irene Kaufmann Settlement House also began slowly migrating to Squirrel Hill. In 1944, in the middle of these transitions, Lampel relocated his business to Squirrel Hill, starting L&G Restaurant at 2014-2016 Murray Avenue.

Advertisement announcing the opening of Bloom's Restaurant at 1830 Center Ave., May 5, 1944.

—from Jewish Criterion

Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project

Even with all these changes, the Irene Kaufmann Settlement House on Center Avenue remained an important site of Jewish activities for several more years.

At least one Jewish businessman sensed the need for a Jewish-style restaurant. Harry Bloom opened a restaurant at 1830 Center Ave. in 1944. His first advertisements might even subtlety acknowledge the migration of the Jewish population: “Bring your family and have Sunday dinner with us."

Harry Bloom’s closed his kosher-style restaurant in 1945 and reopened as the Blue Haven, at which point he stopped advertising in the local Jewish press.

Next Week: A kosher restaurant downtown

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

New Americans Resettlement Committee

Color photograph showing two unidentified men carrying a banner reading “Jewish Communtiy Center New Americans in Pittsburgh Love Israel” on Forbes Avenue in Squirrel Hill during an Israel Day Parade, May 1991.

—from Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh Photographs [MSP 389].

The New Americans Resettlement Committee coordinated volunteer efforts to support the hundreds of Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union who resettled in the Pittsburgh area in the late 1970s and 1980s. The United Jewish Federation created the committee in 1979. The committee matched volunteers with specific projects and needs at various resettlement agencies throughout the community, especially the Jewish Community Center and Jewish Family and Children's Service. The committee also oversaw the publication of a special section of the Jewish Chronicle, by and for Soviet Jews.

Our entry for the New Americans Resettlement Committee includes photographs of its activities in the 1980s and early 1990s, a selection of its newspaper features, and the special booklet produced for the Rauh Jewish Archives after a volunteer recognition ceremony in April 1991.

"Bijou Theater—June 7, 1903"

Photograph showing the delegates to the Sixth Annual Convention of the American Federation of Zionists, gathered at Turner Hall on Forbes Avenue. Originally published in the July 1903 issue of the American Federation of Zionists’  journal "Maccabean."

from The Maccabean (online—Archive.org)

Friday night in the Hill District. Shaare Torah is packed — Kol Nidre packed — and the chazzanim are going all out. The next morning, the crowds head for Schacharis at the Washington Street shul, Beth Hamedrash Hagodol, where the sanctuary is draped in blue and white bunting. From the bima, the gabbaim make mi shebrachs for Theodor Herzl and urge the gathered congregants to pledge their charity to the Jewish National Fund...

Today:

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 today 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.

Faculty of the Beaver Valley Hebrew Religious School with the confirmation class of 1923: (back row, left to right) Nell Feuchtwanger, Dr. Samuel H. Goldenson, Meyer Berkman and I. W. Solomon, (front row, left to right) Sylvia Hostine, Abe Fineberg, Anna Goodman, Jacob Venger, Milton Cohen, Ida Caplan, Lillian Maretsky and Elizabeth Belloff.

-from Beaver Valley United Jewish Community Photographs (MSP 447)

The late-spring/early-summer holiday of Shavuot commemorates the giving of the Torah. In modern times, the holiday has been used as an anchor for Jewish educational initiatives. Confirmation ceremonies have traditionally been held around Shavuot, which conveniently falls near the end of the school year. 

One of the ancient customs of Shavuot involves decorating the sanctuary in lush springtime greenery. You can see such greenery in this photograph from the Beaver Valley Hebrew Religious School confirmation ceremony from 1923.

The Rauh Jewish Archives phone and email account will be offline on Friday, May 26 and Saturday, May 27 on observance of the holiday. The Library & Archives reading room will be open during its normal hours, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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.