MAINE+JEWISH+ LEGACY

hat does it mean to be a “Maine Jew” … a “Jewish Mainer”? This question lthough Maine’s Jewish population has rarely exceeded 10,000, this number has is more complicated, even, than its constituent parts – what it is to be remained fundamentally stable since the 1980s. Concentrated populations of Jewish, what it is to be from Maine – and certainly those are questions Jews currently reside in and around Augusta, Bangor, Bath, Biddeford-Saco, W ever ripe for debate. ALewiston-Auburn, Portland, Rockland and Waterville. Twenty-four synagogues have existed in Maine towns or cities; sixteen continue to serve the community in 2010. This exhibition relies to a great extent on the self-definition of its subjects. It presents individuals who, in one way or another, connect to – through birthright, cultural identification, spiritual practice or intellectual affinity. It presents Jews who, in one way or another, connect to Maine – whether they were born here, vacationed here, once lived here, or chose to relocate here.

Maine’s first Jewish resident is thought to be Susman Abrams, a tanner born in Hamburg, Germany in 1743. He settled in Union some time after the Revolutionary War. There was a Jewish congregation in Bangor by the late 1840s, and there are records of a Jewish resident and a Jewish cemetery in Portland in the 1860s and 1870s, respectively.

Decalogue tablets, former synagogue in Gardiner

Beth Synagogue in Beth Israel Synagogue in Record book, Congregation Waterville Bath Ahawas Achim, founded in Bangor in 1849

ndividuals across the state are supported by an array of Jewish communal and cultural organizations, such as the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine and the Bangor Jewish Community Council. Jews also come together around Hillel I organizations at the University of Maine and Bates, Bowdoin and Colby Colleges. In more isolated and rural corners of Maine, Jews committed to their faith and Statistics on Maine’s Jewish population, 1875 heritage find ways to maintain and express their Judaism in the absence of a minyan (minimum gathering) of ten.

he state’s Jewish population grew in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as it did throughout the United States. More than two million Jewish immigrants fled anti-Semitic oppression and persecution in Eastern Europe and T sought economic opportunity and religious freedom in America. Some Jewish immigrants may have landed in Portland’s harbor; more passed through Philadelphia, New York, , St. John, Quebec, or Halifax as their North American journeys began.

Rosh Hashanah celebration The shofar (ram’s horn) sounds in Presque Isle in Weld

n some periods and places Maine’s Jews have been subject to discrimination and exclusion. Over time, however, they have successfully broken down barriers that once limited their access to social clubs, educational and professional opportunities, I and the world of politics.

Relatives of Louise Berliawsky Former Beth Israel Synagogue in Nevelson Bangor, 1897

he Jews of Maine have had, and continue to have, an impact disproportionate to their number. They have made their marks in Maine and beyond through commercial and entrepreneurial efforts, creative contributions in arts T and letters, pace-setting accomplishments in the medical, legal and financial professions, philanthropic munificence and dynamic civic leadership. Harry Sky and Portland-area clergy plan for a 1963 Civil Rights march

Children with tzedakah Cardiologist and Nobel Prize boxes or pushkes, 1940s winner Bernard Lown on Morris Holland spotlights Portland’s Bet Ha’am WWII-era servicemen and the Auburn-Lewiston “Peace his Jewish granddaughter in members volunteer for others on the steps of Bridge” named for him a Christmas display Cultivating Community Bangor’s JCC at Unobskey’s in Calais

Maine+Jewish is a first programmatic effort by the new Maine Jewish Museum, based at and the previous, substantial work of Abraham and Jean Peck and by the input of a small advisory Photographers: Phyllis Graber Jensen (Lown), Marilyn Jo Josephson (Weld) from Portland’s Etz Chaim Synagogue. Documenting Maine Jewry (www.mainejews.org), group, including David Freidenreich, Phyllis Graber Jensen and Judith Halpert. Special thanks MAINE JEWISH a virtual museum on Maine’s Jewish life and history, served as the exhibition developer. are extended to Gary Berenson and Jody Sataloff at the Etz Chaim Synagogue, Abraham Schechter MUSEUM Amy E. Waterman was the lead curator-writer; Harris Gleckman, DMJ’s day-to-day coordinator of the Portland Public Library, Richard d’Abate and his staff at the Maine Historical Society, (Shammos) supported the process and managed the introduction of the associated kiosks. Steven Greenberg of Boston’s Vilna Shul, the DMJ Minyan (coordinating group), and Gabbaim Images and ideas derive from the research of many scholars and the knowledge and (regional coordinators), and to Susan Cummings-Lawrence for her research skills and contributions of numerous individuals and institutions. The work was facilitated greatly by resourcefulness. Documenting Maine Jewry (DMJ)

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MAINE+JEWISH+ JOURNEY

ow was it that Jews came to Maine? What attracted them to this distinctly he experiences of those early Maine Jews may be remote in time and memory, isolated, if picturesque, corner of the United States? but they are key to this story. Not all of them stayed here – many moved on to other U.S. and Canadian destinations – but the ones who planted roots in H In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Jews in Poland, Russia, Hungary, T Maine exhibited qualities that subsequent Jewish Mainers have admired Lithuania and Latvia suffered under tyranny, deprivations and pogroms. Gradually word and emulated: resolve, resourcefulness, devotion to family, commitment to community. reached them, through newspaper articles, agency publications and letters from family members, about the promise of America.

NEED

Beth Israel (Bangor) board, 1913 Maps of Eastern Europe

Dedication at Beth Abraham (Bangor), 1933

hese first-generation Maine Jews were poised between continuity and change. They strove to preserve cultural traditions in a context of American modernity, advancing technologies and popular entertainment. If their conservative dress T and, often, long beards did not brand them as foreigners, limited English skills A branch of Portland resident sometimes did. These speakers of Russian, Polish and Yiddish acquired American styles Judith Halpert’s family and American slang relatively quickly, but were sometimes reluctant to leave native tree, tracing her maternal grandfather’s line tongues and minhag (custom) behind.

fter securing funds for carriage rides, rail passages and ship’s tickets, hundreds of thousands of East European Jews followed an earlier wave of German Jewish immigrants. They traveled from small villages and large Jewish centers A to major port cities, then embarked on ocean voyages – often suffering seasickness, indignities and cramped quarters in steerage class.

In 1938 Falk Ilowitski Hyman Rosenthal of The Yiddish Globe Theater presented his son George Waterville reads the Yiddish performed in Auburn in 1914 Lewis with honorary Forward, 1945 member in the Tarbut (culture school) of their native Kosovo, Poland

or actively practicing Jews there were particular hurdles to overcome. Their challenges remain present-day realities for observant Jews outside of the Portland and Bangor metropolitan areas. Like Jews in Montana or Mississippi – in any F U.S. state or country of the world where Jews and Jewish services are limited – This portrait of Jacob Freeman The Weinstein, Coolberg and they are forced to sacrifice, innovate or compromise in order to satisfy religious obligations. was painted when he was still in Wishnetski families of Rorbakh, Lithuania Ukraine

ome found their way to relatives or landsmen who had made the trip earlier and put down roots in Maine. Others fled unhealthy urban tenement districts. Some sought a climate or scale similar to what they had known in S their European shtetlach. Perhaps some learned of the timber industry and coastal commerce in Maine. Others were relocated to the state from their port of Original Congregation entry by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. Beth Israel building, Old Orchard Beach Etz Chaim (Bacon Street Contract for seats at shul) in Biddeford Beth Israel in Waterville

ometimes conditions defy the will to sustain Judaism, but frequently, through initiative and creativity, committed Maine Jews reconcile faith and circumstances – recruiting sufficient co-religionists to form a minyan, obtaining S food products that satisfy the laws of , securing human and financial resources to build synagogues or ritual baths, and expanding the Jewish social worlds of their children to ensure a strong Jewish future.

Four 19th-century Bangor Jewish women JCC dance group, 1952

Girls on bimah, Shaarey Tphiloh (Portland), 1938

Rabbi David Berent Kornetsky, Rosenberg and (Lewiston) and young friend Tabachnick families in the visit with Sen. Margaret early 20th century Chase Smith and LBJ, 1960s

Documenting Maine Jewry (DMJ) MAINE JEWISH www.MaineJews.org MUSEUM

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MAINE+JEWISH+ COMMUNITY

or Jews in Maine and elsewhere, “community” can mean those with whom he focal institution of the Jewish community, outside of the home, is the we break bread – or matzah – at a holiday gathering. It may mean those with synagogue. In Maine, despite its modest Jewish population and the great whom we exchange ideas, on whom we rely in a crisis, or with whom we distances that divide neighbors and families, communities have built F worship, celebrate or grieve. Communities may be groups that struggle to T and sustained houses of worship and often the schools that go with them. accomplish a goal, build a new institution, or commemorate history. “Community” can Three different Hebrew names for synagogue – Beit Tefila (House of Prayer), extend to all with whom we share values and hopes for the future. Beit Hamidrash (House of Study) and Beit Haknesset (House of Assembly) – suggest the multiple roles that synagogues play within Jewish communities.

Augusta’s Temple Beth El (watercolor by Lenora Leibowitz) Window, Congregation Beth Israel, Old Orchard Dedication of the JCC in Beach Portland, 1958

Etz Chaim congregant Ledger of contributions, Etz (ink wash by Chaim Synagogue, Portland Abraham Schechter)

Torah dedication, Beth Israel in Bangor, 1929 ometimes congregations have met in private homes, storefront spaces or above retail establishments, like Green’s Department Store in Presque Isle. Maine ewish citizens of Maine have been active in countless communal, social service Jews have purchased and converted former church buildings, like Adas and cultural organizations. As founders, contributors or dedicated workers, S Yosurun in Rockland, and they have raised the funds needed to create inspiring they have benefited their religious brethren and served others locally, regionally buildings from the ground up. J and around the world. They have assisted Holocaust survivors and refugee populations, raised funds for the State of Israel, campaigned for social justice, worked as community organizers and literacy advocates, organized Jewish film festivals, and endowed libraries, archives and JCCs.

Interior, Adas Yoshurun

Aroostock Hebrew Congregation Bet Ha’am, Community Center South Portland, 2009

A member of Junior Hadassah hrough the years some once thriving synagogues, like those in Old Town and Beth El building committee, Portland, 1948 Rumford, were subject to out-migration and dwindling membership and were forced to close. Compensating for such losses have been milestones that unify and inspire communities, such as the events shown here. Organizational logo T

ocial and recreational activities – sports, clubs, parties and theatri- cal productions – bring Maine’s Jewish communities together, too. S A young class “graduates”

from Portland’s JCC, 1968 Beth El (Portland) confirmation, 1955

Dedication of the JCC at Congregation Chaim Josef in Calais, 1937

Mother-daughter dinner, Temple Beth El Sisterhood, 1950s

YMHA basketball team, Lewiston, 1912

Rosalyne Bernstein and sopher (scribe) complete a at Bet Ha’am, 2008 This band frequently performed at Portland JCC, Bella Waterman and clergy sorority and fraternity at Torah dedication, Shaaray dances Tphiloh, Portland, 1955

Photographers: Michael Barriault (Bet Ha’am), Susan Cummings-Lawrence (Beth Israel, Documenting Maine Jewry (DMJ) Mount Sinai, mikvah), Susan Gatti (Bernstein), Maine Jewish Film Festival logo: Elizabeth MAINE JEWISH www.MaineJews.org Margolis-Pineo MUSEUM

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