Author Archive
On this day: bad press for “our down-town brethren”
This post was written by Museum intern Lila Norris. As you may have read, last week on September 4th marked the anniversary of the Eldridge Street Synagogue opening its doors, but this week marks another related anniversary regarding press that followed that opening. On September 11th, 1887 the Reform-based publication The American Isrealite, published in […]
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On This Day in 1887: Eldridge Street Synagogue opens its doors!
Today is a huge anniversary for the Museum and our landmark synagogue – on September 4th, 1887 the Eldridge Street Synagogue officially opened to the public. Remarkably, construction in the incredibly ornate building had begun only ten months earlier. And on September 4th, 1887, the Lower East Side gained its first purpose-built, large-scale synagogue. It […]
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Chop Suey’s Unbirthday
This post originally appeared on August 29, 2018 and has been modified slightly for reposting. We like to use this blog as a place to mark moments in time that are important to our collective past and present. But it can also be important to take stock of what is not, along with what is. […]
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Where You Live in New York May Say a Lot About Your Jewish Heritage
This blog post was written by Museum intern Dalia Rubinstein. It’s no secret that New York is one of the Jewish capitals of the world. The city alone is home to 1.1 million Jews, making it the largest Jewish community outside of Israel. It boasts the largest Jewish population of any world city, larger even […]
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Not-So-Living History: The Queens Cemetery Belt
This post was written by Museum intern Sophie Brous. If you’ve ever flown over New York City, you may have noticed the huge number of cemeteries spanning the area around the Brooklyn-Queens border. Known as the Queens cemetery belt, this massive stretch of land claims at least 5 million interred in its soil. In fact, […]
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Coming to America: Divides in the Jewish-American Community
This blog post was written by Museum intern Brendan Hyatt. During the height of Eastern European Jewish immigration to the United States – the phenomenon which drove the establishment of the Eldridge Street Synagogue – opinions on how the newly massive Jewish population ought to behave and interact with American culture differed widely. “Native” New […]
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Teacher Spotlight: Mike Russo Assigns Knish Tastings for Homework
For years, Molloy College Professor Mike Russo has been taking his students outside the lecture hall and onto the streets of New York City. His course “Gotham: The New York Experience” is a popular Molloy course, and we’re proud to say the Museum at Eldridge Streets plays a major factor in Mike’s syllabus. He recently […]
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From Ladino to Bukhori: Jewish Languages Around the World
This post was written by Museum intern Sophie Brous. If someone asked you to make a list of Jewish languages, what languages would come to mind? Many people would think of Hebrew first, which certainly makes sense–Hebrew is the national language of Israel and historically considered the language of the Jewish people. Some might also […]
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July 12: The Yahrzeit of a “Fiery Jewish Girl”
This blog post was written by Museum intern Dalia Rubinstein. On July 12, 37 years ago, the world lost a Lower East Sider whose chutzpah changed life for many immigrants of her time. Clara Lemlich, although not a household name today, was one of the “farbrente Yidishe meydlekh” [“fiery Jewish girls”] who made a strong […]
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Bagels, Brisket, and Brined Cucumbers: The Jewish American Culinary Experience of the Lower East Side
This blog post was written by Museum intern Lauren Peterson. Upon immigrating to the United States and settling into the Lower East side, Jews had arrived in the land of opportunity. As their relatives may have described it, New York was a city in which the roads were “lined with gold”. They saw the Lower […]
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