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THE “MAGICAL HISTORY TOUR” OF JEWISH PITTSBURGH -- 2007
By Cindy Minogue
On a glorious but chilly Sunday morning, thirty-two members and friends of Adat Shalom Congregation set out to discover the history of Jewish Pittsburgh. With our guide Nicolas Lane, an energetic, silver-haired Englishman at the helm, we departed from Squaw Valley Park on a luxury tour bus.
There has been a Jewish community in and near Pittsburgh almost from the city’s earliest days. What is now Wilkinsburg was once called “Jews’ Town.” The contract to provision the troops at Fort Pitt was held by Jewish merchants from Philadelphia and Lancaster, PA: David Franks, Levy Andrew Levy, and Joseph Simons! Their supply contracts were huge, totaling about 700,000 English pounds. You may recognize the name of Franks from Frankstown Road. All three owned enormous tracts of land in the area. Had the merchants not been Tories – English loyalists – during the Revolution, we might still see them provisioning the fort – but perhaps from hot dog carts at the Point! Samuel Pettigrew, who was said to be half Jewish, was the seventh Mayor of Pittsburgh, from 1832 to 1836; a Jew was an early Treasurer of the city; one was postmaster; some well-known lawyers and journalists of the era were Jews; one resident in the early nineteenth century manufactured fine piano fortes.
Many of the first Jewish settlers joined family members who had come before them. Others stayed for reasons as simple as their horses died and they had no money to buy new ones. After the European revolutions of 1848, there was a flow of German Jews, many of whom had liberal leanings. For them, as for many who followed, the New World was the land not only of economic opportunity, but of political and religious tolerance. Many Jewish Pittsburghers tried to support themselves in occupations related to dry goods, clothing, rag picking, and later on, scrap metal.
The driver slowed down for a glimpse of the Cneseth Israel Cemetery on the way to Troy Hill. Adjoining Cneseth is a smaller, steeper plot of land for the Workman’s Circle Cemetery. This is where the poorer, and usually less devout, Jews were buried.
Our first stop was the Troy Hill Cemetery on Hoffman Road. Troy Hill Cemetery was founded in 1847 and is currently managed by Rodef Shalom. It’s situated in the midst of a mostly German community. The location reflected the German roots of many of the earliest Pittsburgh Jews. As late as 1890, rabbis at Rodef Shalom were required to be able to deliver a sermon in German. The cemetery predates the creation of the first formal Jewish congregation in Pittsburgh; Jews needed a place to bury their loved ones. There is a century-old dispute as to whether the first burial was that of an infant child of either William Franks or Louis Stern, or the wife of Louis Fleishman; record-keeping sometimes left something to be desired, and what records there were, were sometimes lost in Pittsburgh floods. There is a vacant patch of lawn near the gate where the caretaker’s house once stood. The graves at Troy Hill include those of Capt. Jacob Brunn, killed at the battle of Vicksburg in 1863 in the Civil War (the date of death on his stone, 1861, is incorrect), and a woman with the surname Wertheimer who was born in 1796, when Washington was still President. Capt. Brunn had emigrated to the U.S. from northern Germany and, before enlisting in the Union army, was in the dry goods business. We later passed the house of the wealthy Wertheimer family, still standing on the North Side.
We then wound our way through the neighborhood of Troy Hill to the former “City of Allegheny”. If you’ve ever wondered what the large, brick and half-timber building is at the intersection of the 16th Street Bridge and Troy Hill Road, it’s the Teutonia Mannerchor Building -- the home of the German Men’s Choir.
We continued on to Liverpool Street in the Manchester section. Anderson Manor, an elegant Victorian mansion that is now a hospice, was the home of Col. James Anderson, who opened his large personal library to a public that included the young Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie arrived from Scotland in 1848. In later years, Carnegie used this experience as the model for his gifts of libraries. We stopped on Liverpool Street for a closer look at the homes wealthy Jews rented in the 1880s. These stylish, well maintained brick row homes are very similar to those on the Mexican War Streets. Although by that time many Jews lived in this area, the population was quite mixed, including wealthy non-Jews like Anderson as well as people from diverse backgrounds and of varying economic statuses. Indeed, one theme of the tour was that Jews in Pittsburgh never lived in a kind of Jewish ghetto, with only Jews as neighbors. In each area that had a high population of Jews at one time – the North Side, the Hill District (which at one time had at least 25 shuls), the East End, and Squirrel Hill – the Jews lived together with people of other nationalities.
On our way to the Hill District, we passed the “Bake Oven Church,” a noteworthy example of H.H. Richardson’s architecture. While we were moving, Nick continued his historical narrative. He posed the question, “What happens to a Jewish building when it isn’t a Jewish building anymore?” This was a thought that recurred over and over as we visited each point of interest. Among the examples he cited was the Pittsburgh Playhouse on Craft Avenue in Oakland. It was once home to Tree of Life Congregation. Next time you’re there, look for the Mogen David above its entrance.
We threaded our way through a section of Colwell Street soon to be rebuilt by the Penguins to our third stop. Rabbi Stanley Savage welcomed us enthusiastically. He held open the door to Beth Hamedrash Hagadol Beth Jacob Synagogue. The Lithuanian congregation of the original shul was organized in 1873 and was located on Washington Street, a block up from Fifth Avenue. The present sanctuary was erected in 1963.
Three of Beth Hamedrash Hagadol’s most celebrated rabbis are Aaron Ashinsky, Joseph Kaplan and M. S. Sivitz. Ashinsky was a pillar of the Jewish community. He helped found the Jewish Home for the Aged, the Hebrew Institute and Montefiore Hospital just to name a few of his accomplishments. In addition to being a gifted interpreter of scripture, Rabbi Sivitz is credited with insuring the legacy of the first Beth Hamedrash Hagadol building. During a Yom Kippur service, he implored the congregation to donate whatever money they could to liquidate the mortgage debt.
From the outside, the green and cream-colored building has simple, clean, angular lines that do not suggest its graceful interior. The main sanctuary is in the modern style of Frank Lloyd Wright. Its geometric, slotted partitions behind the pews, cone shaped hanging light fixtures and boat-like paneled ceiling were the height of fashion when it was built. Its brilliant, primary colored, stained glass windows with their abstract representations of Jewish symbols line the walls. Light streams through an enormous triangle of stained glass behind the bima. The focus of the sanctuary is the cabinet of the century old German ark. The intricately carved ark, holding three torahs, is said to be the oldest surviving piece of interior synagogue architecture in Pittsburgh.
The congregation of this stranded house of worship survived fire, declining membership and a merger with Beth Jacob. The joint congregation still has about seventy-five dues paying members. Once part of a thriving Jewish community of over two dozen synagogues, it is now under siege. Rabbi Savage explained that his synagogue is in danger of demolition to make way for the Penguins’ new hockey arena. He has done everything he could think of to save the building, which is also his residence. Unfortunately, time is running out and where fire failed, apathy may succeed.
After wishing Rabbi Savage good luck, we moved on to a section of Miller Street between Centre Avenue and Colwell Street. We paused at the former Beth David synagogue, now the Miller Street Baptist Church. While we gathered across the street, two teenage girls in their Sunday best ascended the steps and went inside. A few minutes later, a member of the congregation who was minding the door peeked his head out to see the crowd. He invited us in for the service (an invitation repeated by a woman arriving later), but we politely declined! The man informed a few of us that the congregation is restoring the building and was told by their leaders that the building was once a synagogue. He mentioned an inscription that was restored. He hopes to open the third floor gallery, which we assume was once the women’s section for worship. The only exterior evidence of Beth David are the bricked-in Mogan David on the third floor of the façade and the dedication stone with Hebrew letters above the second floor windows.
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We strolled past the Miller School, the K through 7th grade elementary school where both my parents attended. It is now boarded up, as is the Labor Lyceum, both ready for destruction. Some of the members of the Labor Lyceum are now the residents of the Workman’s Circle Cemetery. The Lyceum was a center for union activism, as well as a place where Yiddish culture from the Old World, and political movements originating in that world, were preserved. Nick pointed out a damaged cornerstone, with the barely discernable words, “WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE 1916.” Was the damage an act of vandalism by the political opposition, or of more recent vintage?
In the next block, once stood the Romanian Cneseth Israel Synagogue. As with so many former synagogues, it is presently a Baptist church. The Mogan David is prominent in its stained glass window. This was the congregation that founded the cemetery we saw at the beginning of our tour. My father’s brother, Louis Hyde, is buried in Cneseth Israel Cemetery. The plot where he rests was purchased by his father-in-law, Max Gross. Perhaps Max Gross was also a member of Cneseth Israel Synagogue.
While walking back to the bus, Marjie Schermer confided that her mother, Molly “Marlyn” Santman first lived on Miller Street. She and Marjie’s Uncle Sidney Santman attended the old Miller School. Her Zadie, Harry Santman, had a wholesale grocery business, Standard Food Products, which was located on Dinwiddie Street.
This part of our tour was particularly moving for me. I had the feeling of walking in my parents’ and grandparents’ footsteps, like a dream. I was a tourist to their lives. Nick described a photo of the children’s milk line. Children of all colors, all nationalities, each waiting his or her turn to fill a cup with milk. I could imagine my mother, in her school dress, a bow in her pageboy hair, quietly waiting with her cup in hand.
We boarded the luxury tour bus and continued our route. We passed the former Irene Kaufman Settlement, the “IKS,” as it was affectionately known, one of Rabbi Ashinsky’s projects. Hill House now occupies that building. We passed the Carnegie Library building, which was the first stepping stone for Jews, Italians, Syrians, Germans, Scots and Irish on their journey off The Hill. They needed to learn English in order to attend school or get a job. We passed the Hebrew Institute building on Wylie Avenue, still in use. The Lubavich Ukranian synagogue, which is not the same as the Chabad, is another Baptist church.
Nick described the history of Kether Torah, once the synagogue of Bohemian Jews. Its black domed roof is a prominent reminder of its past, even though it houses a Baptist church. Kether Torah was called “the rag pickers’ synagogue”. Most of the Bohemian members of its congregation would collect pieces of cloth and sell them to the steel mills. They struggled for years to build such a grand sanctuary. Sadly, by the time the building was finished in 1929, most of the congregation had left The Hill.
We passed playwright August Wilson’s childhood home at 1727 Bedford Avenue. Nothing remarkable has been done to restore it, but since we visited a plaque has been installed to indicate that the Pulitzer Price winner lived there. August Wilson lived in the gray-painted rear of the building, which is nearly collapsed. The red brick façade has a window with the words “Market”. This was once a storefront known as “Bella’s Market”. Bella was the grandmother of Alan Siger, a member of Adat Shalom and owner of Consumer’s Produce Company, which grew from Bella’s Market. Wilson’s sister still lives in the neighborhood. Nick recounted how, during a past tour, he’d attempted unsuccessfully to find her at home.
On our way to Highland Park, we drove up Centre Avenue, past the site of the original Montefiore Hospital. Montefiore was the only Jewish hospital in Pittsburgh. It was built as a place for Jewish doctors to practice because none of the other hospitals would give Jews an internship. On Negley Avenue, we paused in front of the former B’nai Israel synagogue. Although it is widely known that architect Henry Hornbostel designed this building, the family of Alexander Cherov still insists that Cherov was the architect. The Urban League owns the building, which is the home of a Charter School. Unfortunately we were unable to go inside. The landscaping appears well maintained.
I remember many weddings and bar mitzvahs in B’nai Israel. The interior is magnificent. Its sanctuary is round, the ceiling is blue with gold stars. It has a unique spiral ramp with cork flooring leading downward to the lower level.
We passed two more Jewish buildings as we drove down Negley. Torath Chaim closed in 2004 or 2005. Its gray stone façade with a large geometric menorah is easily recognizable. Machsikei Hadas is no longer a house of worship. Marjie Schermer’s late Uncle Sidney Santman donated the interior of Machsikei Hadas to the Heinz History Center, where it is presently on display. He made a recording about life on The Hill, also available at the Heinz History Center.
Machsikei Hadas has been a mystery to me for years. My mother’s parents eventually moved to Baywood Street in Highland Park, which is within walking distance. I feel certain that I’ve been inside that shul some time in my life. Now, it looks like a strange little house.
Finally, we returned to Squaw Valley Park. The tour was three hours of good fellowship. It was an opportunity to see through the eyes of our grandparents an endangered landscape that may disappear when the new hockey arena is constructed. And it was a chance to share in the many years of dedicated research of Nick Lane, a rare guide to the history of Jewish Pittsburgh.
Thank you to the other members of our Interfaith Couples Committee:
Nancy Ostrow (Chairperson and eternal optimist!), India Loevner and Dana Berger. Without your hard work and enthusiasm the tour would never have taken place!
Special thanks to:
Barry Mitnick for proofreading this article, correcting it for accuracy and contributing his beautiful photographs
Bernie Newman for his fascinating links to the Jewish Criterion newspaper
Mr. Nick Lane, Tour Guide Extrordinaire, many thanks for the years of valuable trivia he pulled together to provide such a magical tour of Pittsburgh’s Jewish history.
Because this article was based on notes taken during Nick’s talk, as well as on memories and some incomplete archival sources, I hope that readers will excuse any errors and will become interested enough to consult the references listed below.
Links and references:
Cooper, Charles I. “The Story of the Jews of Pittsburgh.” Jewish Criterion May 31, 1918 Carnegie Mellon University Libraries website.
Shoop, H. Norman. “The History of Beth Hamedrosh Hagodol,” Jewish Criterion 1921 Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project, Carnegie Mellon University Libraries website.
Schugar, Ralph. Ralph Sugar Chapel website; “Cemetery Directions;
Feldman, Jacob S. The Early Migration and Settlement of the Jews in Pittsburgh 1754-1894. Pittsburgh; United Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh; 1986.
Levin, Steve. Today, There is Just One: Beth Hamedrash Hagadol-Beth Jacob Pittsburgh; PG Publishing; copyright 1997-2007. |
