CHAPTER XVIII

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THE FIRST COMMUNITIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.

Impetus given to immigration to America by the reaction after the fall of Napoleon――The second period of Jewish immigration―― First legislation about immigration (1819)――The first Jew in Cincinnati――Its first congregation, Bene Israel――Appeals to outside communities for funds to build a synagogue――The first Talmud Torah――Rabbis Gutheim, Wise and Lilienthal――Cleveland―― St. Louis――Louisville――Mobile――Montgomery and its alleged Jewish founder, Abraham Mordecai――Savannah and Augusta――New Orleans――Judah Touro.

The reaction in Western Europe after the fall of Napoleon in 1815 gave an impetus to emigration to America. This was especially true of Germany and more particularly of the German Jews. Those who had already tasted the sweets of freedom could not so easily endure the returning hardships of the galling exceptional laws and discriminations, as did their fathers and grandfathers who knew not the experience of better conditions. While the struggle for political and religious liberty was carried on with increased intensity in the various German states and principalities, many ventured to come out to the New World in quest of more favorable conditions and better opportunities. This new immigration, which continued for about half a century, until the Jews in all the German states were emancipated, much exceeded the immigration of the preceding two centuries, while it now appears almost insignificant in comparison with the large influx from the Slavic countries in the last thirty years. These Jewish immigrants of the second period, which is usually called the German period (though a considerable number came from Austria-Hungary, Russian-Poland and even Russia proper), were in one essential point more like the Slavic Jews who came after them than like the Sephardim of former times; they came poor, and grew up with the country. The Spanish and Portuguese Jews as a class were wealthy; some of them brought more capital with them than was found in the localities in which they settled. Their wealth and their business connections made them welcome or secured them sufferance at a time and at places――in the Old World as well as in the New――where a poor Jew, coming to earn his living as a peddler or craftsman, would probably never have been admitted. But better times had come; an immensely large country, which had now increased its territory by the Louisiana Purchase, and doubly secured its independence by the successful issue of the second war with its former masters, now needed men even more than money, and the immigrant who came to cast his lot with the new nation was welcome. A substantial part of the Jewish immigrants of this new era remained in the older communities, which were thereby largely increased. But many penetrated far into the South and the West; new settlements were founded in scores of places, and almost in each case a congregation was formed as soon as there were a sufficient number of Jews to warrant such an undertaking. As there was no longer any struggle between the Jews, as such, and the surrounding non-Jewish world, the history of the Jews of a locality is mainly the history of its communal institutions and of its individual members, who reflect credit on it by their distinction in various fields of activity. We shall now follow the formation of these new communities in various parts of the country, with an effort to understand the spirit which moved the early settlers in their Jewish activities, which helped them to rise to an eminent position in their new home and to be useful to their fellow citizens, as well as to their co-religionists who arrived at a later period.

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There are no statistical figures for the number of immigrants who arrived in the second decade of the nineteenth century; but what may be considered as an official declaration (in the voluminous report of the Immigration Commission, issued in 1910) states that after the year 1816 “an unprecedented emigration from Europe to the United States occurred. It is estimated that no less than 20,000 persons arrived in 1817.” The sudden demand for passage caused overcrowding, disease and death in the steerage of the sailing vessels, which resulted in the first “legislative interference” by a law which “became effective March 2, 1819, containing provisions intending to regulate the number of passengers on each vessel and proper victualing of each vessel.” A provision of this law also marked the beginning of statistics relative to immigration into the United States. And as there was now a certain percentage of Jews among the arrivals of each year, it may be presumed that the Jews of that time were as much interested in these earliest provisions relating to immigration, as we are to-day in that perennial question.

Some of the pioneers of this new Jewish immigration came from England, but as in the earlier period of the Spanish Jews, the Germans and the Polish soon followed, or came simultaneously. A typical instance was that of Cincinnati, where the first Jewish congregation in the Ohio Valley was formed. The first Jew to settle there was Joseph Jonas (b. in Exeter, England, 1792; d. in Cincinnati, May 5, 1869), who came to America in 1816 and lived for a short time in New York and in Philadelphia. He left the latter city on the second day of January, 1817, and arrived in Cincinnati on the eighth of March. He was a watchmaker by trade, and had little difficulty in establishing himself. He was a curiosity at first, as many in that part of the country had never seen a Jew before. Numbers of people came from the country round about to see him, and he related in his old age of an old Quakeress who said to him: “Art thou a Jew? Thou art one of God’s chosen people. Wilt thou let me examine thee?” She turned him round and round and at last exclaimed: “Well, thou art no different to other people.”[27]

Jonas remained the only Jew in Cincinnati for about two years, when he was joined by Lewis Cohen of London, Barnet Levi of Liverpool and Joseph Levy of Exeter. These four, with David Israel Johnson of Brookville, Ind. (a frontier trading-station), conducted in the autumn of 1819 the first Jewish service in the western portion of the United States. Solomon Buckingham, Moses Nathan and Solomon Menken came there from Germany in 1820. The last named established the first wholesale dry goods house in Cincinnati. The six Moses brothers, one of whom, Phineas (d. 1895), lived to the age of ninety-seven, arrived in the following two years, and about this time Joseph Jonas was joined by his three brothers, Abraham, Samuel and George; their parents and a fourth brother, Edward, coming some time afterwards. Services were held only on Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur until 1824, when the number of Jewish inhabitants reached about twenty. (See “Publications,” IX, p. 155, for fourteen Jewish names from the Cincinnati Directory of 1825.) In the first month of that year the Congregation “Bene Israel” was formally organized, and at a meeting held some time thereafter it was resolved to build a suitable house of worship.

There was not, however, sufficient wealth in the new community to enable the congregation to undertake the work unaided, and an appeal was sent to the older congregations in the United States and also to England, for help in the proposed undertaking. A copy of this appeal has been preserved (in “Publications,” X, pp. 98–99) and reads as follows:

TO THE ELDERS OF THE JEWISH CONGREGATION AT CHARLESTON.

GENTLEMEN:――Being deputed by our Congregation in this place, as their committee to address you in behalf of our holy Religion, separated as we are and scattered through the wilds of America as children of the same family and faith, we consider it as our duty to apply to you for assistance in the erection of a House to worship the God of our forefathers, agreeably to the Jewish faith; we have always performed all in our power to promote Judaism and for the last four or five years we have congregated where a few years before nothing was heard but the howling of wild beasts and the more hideous cry of savage man. We are well assured that many Jews are lost in this country from not being in the neighborhood of a congregation, they often marry with Christians, and their posterity lose the true worship of God forever; we have at this time a room fitted up for a synagogue, two manuscripts of the law and a burying ground, in which we have already interred four persons, who, but for us, would have lain among the Christians; one of our members also acts as Shochet. It will therefore be seen that nothing has been left undone, which could be performed by eighteen assessed and six unassessed members. Two of the deceased persons were poor strangers, one of whom was brought to be interred from Louisville, a distance of near 200 miles.

To you, Gentlemen, we are mostly strangers and have no further claim on you, than that of children of the same faith and family, requesting your pious and laudable assistance to promote the decrees of our holy Religion. Several of our members are, however, well known both in Philadelphia and New York――namely Mr. Samuel Joseph, formerly of Philadelphia; Messrs. Moses Jonas and Mr. Joseph Jonas, the two Mr. Jonas’s have both married daughters of the late Rev. Gerson Mendes Seixas of New York. Therefore with confidence, we solicit your aid to this truly pious undertaking, we are unable to defray the whole expense, and have made application to you as well as the other principal congregations in America and England, and have no doubt of ultimate success.

It is also worthy of remark that there is not a congregation within 500 miles of this city, and we presume it is well known how easy of access we are to New Orleans, and we are well informed that had we a synagogue here, hundreds from that city who now know and see nothing of their religion, would frequently attend here during holidays.

We are, Gentlemen, your obedient servants,

S. Joseph Chan, Joseph Jonas, D. I. Johnson, Phineas Moses.

I certify the above is agreeable to a Resolution of the Hebrew Congregation of Cincinnati.

July 3, 1825.

Joseph Jonas, Parnas.

Both the congregation in Charleston and that in Philadelphia sent contributions, and so did some individuals in New Orleans and in Barbadoes, W. I. It was some time, however, until the necessary amount was collected. The congregation was chartered by the General Assembly of Ohio in 1830, and the synagogue was dedicated in the year 1836. The first official reader was Joseph Samuels; he was succeeded by Henry Harris, who was followed in 1838 by Hart Judah. In the same year was organized the first benevolent association. The first religious school was founded in 1842, but it existed only a short time. A Talmud Torah was established in 1845, which gave way in the following year to the Hebrew Institute, of which James K. Gutheim (b. in Prussia, 1817; d. in New Orleans, 1886) was the founder. This also flourished but a short time, for with the departure of Rabbi Gutheim for New Orleans in 1848 the institute was closed.

A considerable number of German Jews arrived in the city during the fourth decade of the nineteenth century. They were not in sympathy with the existing congregation, in which the influence of the English Jews was predominant, and determined to form another congregation. The Bene Yeshurun congregation was accordingly organized by these Germans in September, 1841, and it was incorporated under the laws of the state in 1842. Its first reader was Simon Bamberger, and when Gutheim, who followed him, left it, he was succeeded by H. A. Henry and A. Rosenfeld. The assumption of the office of rabbi in the Bene Yeshurun congregation by Isaac M. Wise in April, 1854, and in the Bene Israel congregation by Max Lilienthal (b. in Munich, 1815; d. in Cincinnati, 1882) in June, 1855, gave the Jewish community of Cincinnati a commanding position and made it a Jewish center and the home of a number of movements which were national in scope. But their activity in general Jewish matters does not properly belong to the history of Jews in Cincinnati, and will be treated in a succeeding chapter. Three other congregations were formed before the close of the period of German-Polish immigration: the Adath Israel, organized in 1847; the Ahabat Achim, organized in 1848; and the Shearit Israel, in 1855.

The first Jew who is known to have settled in Cleveland, O., was a Bavarian, Simson Thorman, who came there in 1837. He was soon joined by Aaron Leventrite and by others of his countrymen, and the thriving city, which had then about 6,000 inhabitants, soon had twenty Jews, who organized the Israelitish Society in 1839. In 1842 there was a split, and the seceding part formed the Anshe Chesed Society; but four years later these two again united and formed the Anshe Chesed congregation, the oldest existing congregation in Cleveland. The first services were held in a hall on South Water street and Vineyard lane, with Thorman as president and Isaac Hoffman as minister or reader. A burial ground was purchased in 1840. New dissensions arose in 1848 in the rapidly increasing community and resulted in the withdrawal of a number of members, who in 1850 formed the Congregation Tifereth Israel, which from the beginning represented the reform element. Isidor Kalish (b. in Krotoschin, Prussia, 1816; d. in Newark, N. J., 1886) was its first rabbi until 1855, and he was followed by Wolf Fassbinder, Jacob Cohen, G. M. Cohen, Jacob Mayer, Aaron Hahn and the present incumbent, Moses J. Gries (b. in Newark, 1868), who assumed his position in 1892. The rabbis of the older congregation were: Fuld, 1850; E. Hertzman, 1860–61; G. M. Cohen, 1861–66; Nathan, 1866–67; Gustave M. Cohen, 1867–75; Moritz Tintner (b. in Austerlitz, Austria, 1828; d. in New York, May 11, 1910), 1875–76; and M. Machol (b. in Kolmar-in-Posen, 1845) since 1876.

The first Jewish congregation in St. Louis, Mo., was organized about the same time as that of Cleveland, though individual Jews were living there more than thirty years before. The Bloch, or Block, family of Schwihau, Bohemia, settled there about 1816, the pioneer being Wolf Bloch. Eliezer Block was an attorney-at-law there in 1821. Most of the early arrivals intermarried with Christians, and were lost to Judaism. It was not until the Jewish New Year in 1836 that the first religious services were held, when ten men rented a little room over a grocery store at the corner of Second and Spruce streets. The Achduth Israel or United Hebrew Congregation was organized in 1839, Abraham Weigel (d. 1888) being the first president and Samuel Davidson the first reader. Services were held for many years in a private house in Frenchtown. The first building used as a synagogue was located in Fifth street, between Green and Washington avenues. According to Markens (p. 108), Bernard Illowy (b. in Kolin, Bohemia, 1814; d. near Cincinnati, O., 1871), one of the leading conservative rabbis of America in his time, a pupil of the great Rabbi Moses Sofer (1763–1839), of Presburg, Hungary, was elected to the rabbinate of the St. Louis congregation in 1854. Its temple on Sixth street, between Locust and St. Charles streets, was dedicated in 1859. Rev. Henry J. Messing (b. 1848) held the position of rabbi for about thirty years. The B’nai El congregation, which was organized in 1852, moved into its own house of worship in 1855. Rabbi Moritz Spitz (b. in Csaba, Hungary, 1848), editor of the “Jewish Voice,” has been at the head of this congregation since 1878. The third of the earlier congregations, Shaare Emet, was organized in 1866, with H. S. Sonnenschein (b. in Hungary, 1839; d. in Des Moines, Ia., 1908) as its first rabbi.

The first Jewish organization of Louisville, Ky., is mentioned in the year 1832, and two brothers named Heymann, or Hyman, from Berlin, were known to have settled there as early as 1814. Several Polish Jews from Charlestown, S. C., and some German Jews from Baltimore arrived there about 1836, and were soon joined by new arrivals direct from Germany. They bought a graveyard, built a mikweh and engaged a _shochet_. A few wealthy Jews came from Richmond, Va., but they did not associate with the others and were soon absorbed by the non-Jewish population. The first regular minister was J. Dinkelspiel (1841), and the congregation, which was named Adath Israel, was incorporated in 1842. B. H. Gotthelf was elected cantor and _shochet_ in 1848 and later became Hebrew teacher of a school which was opened in 1854. In 1850 a synagogue was built on Fourth street, between Green and Walnut streets, which was consumed by fire in 1866. A regular preacher, L. Kleeberg, was then engaged and remained till 1878. Another congregation was chartered by the legislature in 1851, but it was not properly organized until 1856, when it changed its name from “The Polish House of Israel” to Bet Israel.

Farther to the south congregations were organized about that time in Mobile, Ala., and in two other towns of that state. The most prominent among the early settlers of Mobile was Israel I. Jones, who arrived there from Charleston, S. C., and organized the Congregation Shaare Shamayyim, the oldest in the state, in 1844. B. L. Tim, from Hamburg, in whose residence the first services were held; I. Goldsmith, S. Lyons, D. Markstein, Solomon Jones and A. Goldstucker, all from Germany, were among the first members. The first synagogue was dedicated in December, 1846, with Mr. Jones as President and Rev. de Silva as minister. The latter died in New Orleans in 1848 and was succeeded by Baruch M. Emanuel, who served for five years. Montgomery, which is said to have been founded by Abraham Mordecai, an intelligent Jew, who dwelt fifty years in the Creek Nation, and confidently believed that the Indians were originally of his people (see “Publications,” XIII, pp. 71–81, 83–88), had its first Jewish society for relieving the sick, organized in 1846. Its first twelve members were from Germany and Poland. In 1849 this Chevra, which held religious services on Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur, was enlarged into a regular congregation called Kahal Montgomery or Temple Beth Or. Isaiah Weil was the first president and the number of members was about thirty. No rabbi was employed until about fifteen years later. There is also a record of a congregation which was organized in Claiborne, Ala., in 1855, and had an officiating rabbi. Most of the Jews, however, left the town and the congregation passed out of existence.

While the older Jewish community of Savannah, Ga., which dated from the eighteenth century, was strengthened by the new immigration, a new community, in Augusta, grew up in the first half of the nineteenth century. A Mr. Florence and his wife came there from Holland in 1825. Isaac Hendricks arrived with his family from Charleston, S. C., in 1826, and it is believed that Isaac and Jacob Moise, also Charlestonians, reached Augusta about the same time. Jews from Germany began to arrive in 1844. Isaac Levy, who came there about 1840, was for many years City Sheriff, and Samuel Levy was for two years Judge of the Superior Court and for ten years Judge of the Court of Ordinary (Markens, p. 113). There is reason to believe that the sixth Governor of Georgia, David Emanuel (d. 1808), who assumed the office March 3, 1801, and after whom the largest county in the state, Emanuel, was named, was a Jew, or at least of Jewish Descent.[28] The number of Jews in Augusta went on increasing until about 1846, when the congregation B’nai Israel, which is still in existence, was organized.

Illustration: Judah Touro.

The prominent figure of the philanthropist Judah Touro (b. in Newport, R. I., 1775; d. in New Orleans, 1854) looms large in the early Jewish history of New Orleans. Touro was educated by his uncle, Moses Michael Hays (1739–1805), who had become an eminent merchant of Boston, and was later employed in his counting house. Touro came to New Orleans about a year before Louisiana was purchased by the United States from France in 1803. He opened a store and built up a thriving trade in New England products, and soon became one of the wealthiest and most prominent merchants of the growing city. He gave liberally to many charities and public spirited enterprises in New Orleans and elsewhere, at a time when large gifts for such purposes were not as common as they are now. When he donated $10,000 towards the erection of the Bunker Hill Monument in 1840, those interested in raising the necessary funds had almost given up their project in despair. Though the cornerstone was laid in 1826, on the fiftieth anniversary of the battle which it was to commemorate, Amos Lawrence’s generous offers of aid met with no material response, even when aided by the eloquent appeals of Edward Everett (1794–1865) and Daniel Webster (1782–1852), until Touro privately offered to duplicate Lawrence’s donation, provided the remaining necessary $30,000 would be raised. On the dedication of the monument in 1843, when Daniel Webster was the orator of the day, the generosity of the chief donors was praised in the lines read by the presiding officer, which became very popular at that time.[29] At his death he left, among many other bequests, a large sum in trust to Sir Moses Montefiore (1784–1885) for the poor Jews of Jerusalem. His name is connected with the oldest and largest Jewish institutions in New Orleans, while Boston, Newport and other communities have benefited by his generosity.

Alexander Isaacs and Asher Philips were also among the arrivals at New Orleans early in the last century. Morris Jacobs and Aaron Daniels were the Senior Wardens, and Abraham Plotz, Asher Philips and Abraham Green, the Junior Wardens of a benevolent society named Shaare Chesed. In that capacity they bought the first Jewish cemetery in New Orleans, which was located just beyond the suburb of Lafayette, in the Parish of Jefferson, fronting on Jackson street, where the first interment, that of ♦Haym Harris, took place on June 28, 1828. The first congregation adopted the name of the benevolent society, and worshipped in a room on the top floor of a building in St. Louis street. The oldest existing synagogue, the Shaare Chesed Nefuzot Judah, commonly known as the Touro synagogue, was organized in its present form in 1854. The other congregations belong to a later period, which will be described in a subsequent part.

Another prominent Jew, the greatest in American public life――Judah P. Benjamin――also lived in New Orleans in this period. But he took no interest in Jewish affairs, and his career belongs to the chapters in which the participation of Jews in the dispute about slavery and in the Civil War will be described.

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