Roberta and Nancy, our archivist, enjoying our most recent gala

Master Docent Roberta Berken shares:

In my capacity as a docent I am fortunate to meet people from all over the world and the country. Here are some of their stories.

In East London in the l9th century it was the custom for street peddlers to specialize in a particular item. Often the Jewish peddlers would sell fish and the Irish peddlers would sell potatoes, According to one of our visitors from London the Irish and the Jewish peddlers got together and decided to sell fried fish and potatoes together. Thus the origin of fish and chips. Now is this a fish story?? On the Lower East Side in the 1890′s one of our visitors described her great grandfather as a custom peddler. He would question his neighbors as to what they wanted to purchase for their needs. He would do their shopping for them for a fee. Thus the first personal shopper.

In a town in North Carolina there is a very special Torah. A visitor to our sanctuary while standing near the Ark told how her great grandfather fled his shetl with the Torah from the towns’ synagogue. While running from the shetl the soldiers fired on the band of Jews. One of the bullets hit the Torah which her great grandfather was holding saving her great grandfather but leaving a hole that went through the Torah cover and most of the Torah scroll. The Torah saved his life. She said that the Torah is in their synagogue and is used on special occasions.

Maybe something can be done about the weather…

As the Museum’s archivist, it has been a treat to be able to look at each item in our collection.  What are my favorites?  It’s so hard to say, but this sign, from the Museum’s sizable collection of Hebrew and Yiddish signs collected from around our Lower East Side neighborhood, is on my list.

It’s small, about the size of a standard sheet of paper.  Its frame is nicked and worn, and the sign itself is stained.  Why do I like this so much?  I like how it looks, its authentic patina of age.  But the deal was sealed when I found out what it says.

The Hebrew writing is the beginning of the Blessing for Dew:  “V’ten Tal u’Matar“; in English, “And give rain and dew.”  This sign signals that this blessing should be added to daily prayers, and it would be hung on the synagogue’s bimah during the dry season in Israel, roughly from fall through early spring.

I was curious about why the sign had clearly gotten wet — its letters are blurred and its hanger is rusted.  I wanted to think that it had hung outside and that its instructions had produced results — that it had worked and brought rain.  But probably, like so much else at the Eldridge Street Synagogue, it fell victim to the elements when the main sanctuary was shut in the 1950s.  Still, I love that the cycles of nature are part of prayer and faith, and that asking for rain would be a community aspiration.

As this brutal winter drags on, maybe we should organize a collective prayer for an early Spring!

Written by Nancy Johnson, Museum Archivist

An artisan from Evergreene Studios works on the building

Our building tours offer visitors a peek into the workings of the historic Eldridge Street Synagogue, and we’ve been busy adding new themes and tours to our lineup. You can now experience Eldridge through the lens of immigration, ritual practice, or architecture and preservation.

On Beyond the Facade: Architecture and Preservation, we break out the flashlights and turn our visitors  into forensic architects. What were the choices made by the founders of the Eldridge Street Synagogue 123 years ago? How did this building, the first synagogue built from the ground up by Eastern European Jews, reflect the aspirations of an immigrant community? What techniques and materials were used in its original construction? Which buildings, religious and secular, inspired the architecture of this space?

But this building is more than just an ossified architectural relic, and on the tour visitors also explore the 20-year, 19 million-dollar restoration of this space. What was the preservation philosophy at Eldridge Street? Where can you find the unrestored elements of the building, and why were they left alone? How does a new contemporary window, designed by Kiki Smith and Deborah Gans,  fit into a high Victorian space? And my favorite: which bug produces the laquer used on the benches?

So next time you’re in the neighborhood, make sure to stop by and experience Eldridge as never before. Offered daily at 11:30, 1:30 and 3:30. Whet your appetite for architecture with this restoration video, which offers insight into the process of restoring this century-old building.

On our Gangster, Writer, Rabbi walking tour, we explore the lives–and funeral processions–of three iconic Lower East Side figures: writer Sholem Aleichem, Rabbi Jacob Joseph, and East Side gangster Big Jack Zelig. Though Bugsy Siegel and  Meyer Lansky usually come to mind when thinking of Jewish gangsters, Zelig was a true leader of crime in the neighborhood. As Abraham Schoenfeld, detective for the Kehilla, a Jewish communal organization, wrote: “Men before him – like Kid Twist, Monk Eastman, and others – were as pygmies to a giant. With the passing of Zelig, one of the most ‘nerviest’, strongest, and best men of his kind left us.”

Who was Big Jack Zelig? Born Zelig Harry Lefkowitz, Zelig was the leader of a band of Jewish gangsters in New York City in the early 1900s. Early in 1912, the Zelig gang was hired by corrupt New York City Police Lieutenant Charles Becker who ran a protection racket for the New York gangs to kill another Manhattan gangster named Herman (Beansie) Rosenthal whom Becker thought was an informant. Rosenthal was shot to death on a Manhattan Street on July 16,1912 by four of Big Jack’s men. Police Lieut. Becker was arrested and charged with ordering Rosenthal’s murder and put on trial with Zelig scheduled to testify against him. On Oct. 5,1912, the night before the trial was to begin Big Jack Zelig was shot to death while riding on a Second Ave. trolley car in Manhattan. Police Lieut. Becker was convicted of ordering Rosenthal’s murder and sentenced to death. He was executed in Sing-Sing’s electric chair.

Death may be final, but the story doesn’t end there. Find out how Zelig’s funeral polarized the downtown Jewish community, underscoring tensions between American commericalism and Eastern European traditions. The tour is offered Thursdays July 29  and August 19 at 7pm.

In response to my last School Days post about the cheder at the Eldridge Street Synagogue, former Director of Education Annie Polland sent in some enlightening details. Taken from a paper she presented at a conference about the institution of the Bar Mitzvah at the turn of the last century, the following gives us a better understanding of why the congregation’s school lasted only one year:

Why didn’t these congregations start Hebrew schools from the start? We know that the congregation encompassed far more activities in its domain other than merely worship. Politics, building maintenance, charitable activities, and study for adults all took on formal arrangements in the synagogue. Why then, wasn’t there room for formal children’s education? One reason for the hesitancy in building up their own school was that both individuals members and the congregation as a whole was an early and avid supporter of the Machzike Talmud Torah. Given that strong support, they probably reasoned that duplicating their efforts by exerting energy for a school on their premises would only frustrate those already underway. But by 1901, ideas had shifted: The Board of Trustees met on September 30, 1901 and discussed opening a Talmud Torah for its members: “It will be a good thing for Judaism and also a benefit for our congregation.” Several days later, when the trustees brought the proposal “of establish[ing] a school on Shul premises, to provide instruction for the children of members” and that the school should be under the directorship of the conregation” to the general meeting, it was enthusiastically received, as the members not only unanimously accepted it and appointed a committee [David Cohen at head], but opened up their wallets to pledge individual contributions.

A total of $569.25 was raised over two fundraising efforts in the fall of 1901 and summer of 1902. “Cash” contains a section devoted to the “Beit Sefer” and shows the fundraising efforts engaged upon by the members. In several fundraising efforts, starting in October of 1901, August of 1902, individuals pledged money, amounting to the sum of $569.25 , from which teachers were hired, ledgers purchased, and advertisements placed.

At the end of the term in December, the board studied the books and decided to continue the school, which would hold its next session starting July of 1902. Over the next year and half, the board and congregation seemed pleased with the school, continuing to support it and even overseeing construction at the Bes Medrash level for the creation of classrooms. The Cash book shows expenses for teachers, one of them Leib Matlawsky, the secretary. In 1903, there appears to be hesitation, with the congregation pledging their renewed support, but appointing a new school committee (perhaps the former one had become dormant?). The problem seemed to be a loss of funds: “To this end, the following committee is appointed to take care of this matter properly, to be knowledgeable about the finances, so that the congregation will know how much to appropriate when necessary.” In addition to their interest in the financial management of the school, they seemed to think that scholarly nature of the school needed some professionalism, and thus one of the first acts of the committee was to appoint Rav Yosef Fried, who directed much of their adult study sessions and had just published Ohel Yosef, as an advisor.

As the term continued, the financial difficulties were not resolved, and in April 1903 the general meeting debated the topic, and in May of 1903 decided to end the congregation’s formal administration of the school, instead allowing the two teachers to continue their classes in the shul for the next six months “at their own expense.” Because the Minutes do not go into any details, and the Cash book shows an imbalance between income and expense, it is hard to say what happened beyond financial failure. Around the same time, the Minutes show that the congregation had just started to debate the option of opening an uptown branch. Many of the members of the school committee were among those who were interested in the uptown branch, so it is possible that their energies and interests were simply diverted. If they had moved uptown already, then presumably their children were in school uptown, and they were less motivated to lend the energies needed to establish a new school downtown. Indeed, David Cohen—the leader of the committee and who would emerge as the leader of the uptown contingent, was himself a prime player in the movement to build the Uptown Talmud Torah. So, it is possible that just at this juncture, many of the wealthier members had or were starting to move uptown, thus shifting their educational ambitions northward as opposed to the synagogue.

Thanks, Annie! Stay tuned for more about the local public schools, the foundation of Jewish day schools and education for girls coming up over the next few weeks.

What was education like for worshipers at the Eldridge Street Synagogue at the turn of the last century? On my walking tours, we often pass a local landmark: Mesivta Tifereth Jerusalem, known in the neighborhood simply as “The Yeshiva.” This local Jewish school, chartered in 1907 and still thriving today, very often has visitors asking: Where did the members of the Eldridge Street Synagogue send their children to school? I’ll explore this question over the next few weeks, showing some of the different options available to the Jewish community of the Lower East Side at the turn of the last century.

Today’s post is about school at the shul. Did the Eldridge Street congregation form a cheder, a school for boys, as many other local synagogues did? I found the following in an index of the congregation’s Yiddish books, discovered in the basement at the start of the restoration:

During the turn of the century Cong. Adath Yeshurun ran a Hebrew School, for how many years is not clear. This book has on the inside cover Beth Haseifer, Congregation 12-16 Eldridge Street, NY, October 13, 1901. Beth Haseifer, is what Hebrew schools were called. This is a ledger book for the Hebrew School. On page 9 the date seems to be Dec. 1902. It reads “Take out door of cellar . 50.” None of the other expenses concern the shul building. This book contains other expenses, etc. of the shul, as well as minutes of the Loan Committee of the shul.

It appears that for at least a year there was indeed a cheder inside the Eldridge Street building. However, it seems that the school was short lived, as this is the only mention of any such school in the entire collection. Why did the school close after only a year? What does that tell us about the members’ desire to educate their children in Bible, Talmud and Jewish law? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this matter.

Next time, we’ll explore the most popular option for LES children: the local public schools.

We’ve always been cool and cultural, but now we’ve got a stamp of approval! Cool Culture is a New York institution that helps income-eligible families access and enjoy NYC’s world-class cultural institutions for free, providing children with learning experiences that improve literacy and learning. Their programs harness the commitment of 90 cultural institutions and over 430 early education programs and schools, to help parents play an active role as their child’s first teacher. The Museum at Eldridge Street recently joined their roster of impressive cultural organizations and sites.

Miriam Bader, the Museum’s Director of Education, recently attended Cool Culture’s annual fair. She shared a bit about her experience there with me:

Over 500 professionals gathered at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum for the annual Cool Culture fair. Surrounded by impressive aircrafts and exhibitory, early childhood educators and administrators, along with representatives from New York’s cultural institutions, mixed, mingled, and explored ways for children to connect with the arts. Since its founding 10 years ago, Cool Culture has provided hundreds of thousands of low-income parents with opportunities to give their young children educational experiences that instill a love of learning through the arts. The Museum at Eldridge Street is delighted to be one of 90 institutional partners working with Cool Culture to take families on culturally enriching adventures.

We’ve already welcomed dozens of Cool Culture families to the Museum. many of whom came to our fun-filled Winter Garden Festival on Sunday. Our Preservation Detectives family program picks back up this Sunday, and we hope to have even more Cool friends join us.