A History of the Jewish Community in Reading and Berks County rfj5031, Written by students at Pennsylvania State University, Berks Creative Commons - BY -- 2016 Table of Contents Chapters 1 Dedication 1 Acknowledgments 2 Foreword 5 Introduction 7 Abe Minker, Racketeer 9 Anti-Semitism 17 Bakeries, Delis, and Restaurants 20 Building a Community 25 Entrepreneurial Diversity 31 The Jewish Community Center of Reading 34 Jewish Education 40 The Jewish Federation of Reading 43 Jews in the Legal Profession 48 Local Politics and Government 54 Max Hassel, Prohibitionist and Philanthropist 59 Medical Profession 62 Military Veterans 67 Retail Stores and Outlets and the Growth of the Penn Street Merchants 72 Sustaining a Community 76 Synagogues 81 Textile Manufacturing and Outlet Stores 87 Women of Berks County’s Jewish Community 94 Celia Schwartz Kornblit and Maurice Kornblit 100 Esther Bratt’s Story of Survival 115 Eugene Abramowicz: Survivor, Entrepreneur, Husband, Father, Grandfather 123 The Flight of Hannah Hammel Goldsmith 126 From Austria to America: Siegfried and Fanny Kemlot 129 Hilde Gernsheimer: Transport from Terror 133 Richard Yashek: Giving Meaning to Survival 138 The Story of Esther and Chaim Kuperstock 144 A Survivor’s Story of Escape on the Kindertransport: Sidney Bratt 150 Ben Austrian, World Renowned Artist 156 Robert Katz: A Jewish Farmer in Bernville 158 Across the Turbulent Sea: Hilde Bodenheimer 161 Helping the Jews in Poland: Zosia Gerlicz 166 Writers 169 Chapters Dedication Chapters Dedication The book is dedicated to Daniel Tannenbaum, the former director of the Albright College Holocaust Library and Resource Center. Dan was dedicated to Holocaust education. During his tenure as the Executive Director of the Jewish Federation of Reading, Dan was instrumental in helping to found the Center. He would later assist with the creation of a Holocaust Studies program at Albright and the many programs which support it, including the annual Richard J. Yashek Memorial Lecture. Dan arrived in Reading after a long career serving Jewish federations and community centers throughout the United States. A former social worker, with an M.A. in Social Work from Ohio State University, Dan served in the Navy in the Pacific Theater during World War II. He was married to the former Shoshana Harrison for over 50 years and they had two children, Marc and Miriam. Dan died in December 2010, just two weeks after he gave an interview to one of the student writers of this book. During November and December 2010, Dan gave a great deal of his time to the students, seeking to have his knowledge of Jewish history in Reading and Berks documented. We feel privileged to have had this opportunity to record and preserve Dan’s historical knowledge of the local Jewish community. 1 Chapters Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Laurie Grobman Professor of English and Women’s Studies, Penn State Berks The project that led to is a form of what is known in higher education as community-based undergraduate research, a form of instruction that partners students, faculty, and community organization to fill a community need. More than 25 students at Penn State Berks partnered with the Jewish Cultural Center/Jewish Federation of Reading and with hundreds of members of the local Jewish community to document and preserve the community’s history. Many people put forth great effort to support a project such as this. Tammy K. Mitgang helped to coordinate the project, gave students research leads, and reviewed and edited every chapter or sent chapters to others to review. Jayne Kleinman helped out whenever I asked. Jennifer Goss, coordinator of the Albright College Holocaust Resource Center, was appointed to her position after the untimely death of Dan Tannenbaum. In addition to the responsibilities of the Center, Jen graciously agreed to continue the project Dan and I had begun to organize and that appears in this book. My students wrote narratives based on several of the videotaped testimonials housed at the Holocaust Resource Center. I deeply admire Jen’s work ethic, knowledge, commitment to education, and heartfelt concern for Holocaust victims and all victims of genocide. Several community members gave enormous time and effort to students: Bernard Gerber, Bob Kauffman, Jill Skaist, Seymour Bloom, and many others. I also thank every person (and there are too many to name) in Reading and Berks who was interviewed by students. Thanks go out to many people from Penn State Berks for their support of and commitment to community-based research, including Dr. Susan Phillips Speece, Chancellor; Dr. Paul Esqueda, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs; and Dr. Belén Rodríguez-Mourelo, Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences Division Head. Special thanks and appreciation go to students in my Fall 2010 “Writing Local Jewish History” course and students who conducted independent studies in the spring semester who approached this assignment with maturity, integrity, and professionalism. I also thank students in my Spring 2011 course, Honors Writing in the Humanities, who had the difficult task of viewing videotapes of Holocaust survivors and writing their narratives. They did so with great compassion, and they tried their best to tell the stories with accuracy and honesty. 2 Chapters Acknowledgments Special recognition goes to Alyssa Williams, who wrote many Holocaust testimonials for the book by viewing over 10 hours of videotaped testimonies. Viewing these videotapes is an emotionally painful and a daunting task, and I am aware of the emotional turmoil Alyssa felt. She did this work with great compassion and with an incredible work ethic and sense of urgency. Special recognition also goes to Christine James, Editorial Assistant, who contributed to this book in so many ways. She wrote the introduction to this book; she gave her classmates research leads; she meticulously edited many, including all the bibliography entries; she supplemented research and writing in several chapters; she designed the book cover; and so much more. Basically, she did everything I asked of her, and she did so with the most amazing attitude and work ethic. Thanks also go to the Penn State Berks Honors Program and baccalaureate degree programs at for providing funding and support for the printing of A History of the Jewish Community in Reading and Berks: American Studies Program Communication Arts and Sciences Program Global Studies Program Professional Writing Program Jewish Federation of Reading made a generous donation for printing the book. I express my sincerest thanks and appreciation to The Howard O. and Jean Beaver Endowment for Community Service: “The purpose of this fund shall be to support the University’s land-grant mission of service to the needs of the community and to encourage the spirit of volunteerism in the Berks Campus Community.” Note The content in this book was limited by time, space, cost, and access. All chapters were written by undergraduate students within the span of one semester in a course that included a great deal of other assignments. The students learned to write history while writing history. They made every effort to cover many topics and to gather as much information as possible from multiple sources. Students have done their best to represent the historical evidence accurately and objectively. Any inaccuracies are entirely unintended. The content of this book is accurate to the best of our knowledge. The writers are undergraduate students and not professional historians. Much of the information collected is based on the memories and experiences of those who were interviewed. Students have done their best to represent the views expressed in the interviews accurately and objectively. Any inaccuracies are entirely unintended. We are aware that much of the Jewish community’s history has been left out of this book, but we hope the book is the stepping stone of further documentation and preservation of this history. It is vital to realize that this book is a history, not the history, of the Jewish Community in Reading and Berks. 3 Chapters Acknowledgments 4 Chapters Foreword Foreword It seemed obvious after reading an article in Penn State Berks, Research, (Winter 2009-2010) that I had to contact Dr. Laurie Grobman. A professor of English and Women’s Studies at Berks, Dr. Grobman’s work brings teaching and research together as a classroom experience and has resulted in the publication of two local histories, Woven with Words: A Collection of African American History in Berks County, Pennsylvania and Hispanics/Latinos in Reading and Berks: A Portrait of a Community. The books were collections of untold histories and celebrations of multiculturalism. As president of the Jewish Federation of Reading and someone intrigued with learning more about my own personal history, the possibility of working together with Dr. Grobman and her students to gather the stories and history of our Jewish community was compelling. To my knowledge, the last effort to compile a comprehensive history of the local Jewish community had been in 1990 when Dr. Paul A. Leisawitz, a local physician, wrote A History of the Jewish Community in Reading and Berks County. The concept for this book gained momentum with a flurry of emails and grew into a community-wide effort led by more than a dozen students and their professor, a teacher who I consider visionary in her efforts to build bridges that unite cultures. As writers in a “brave new world,” the efforts of the students are admirable. Dr. Grobman’s classes were composed of students from other communities, juggling challenging course work; many with little or no knowledge of the area prior to arriving on campus. None of the students working on the project are Jewish so religious ritual and cultural nuances required definition and further exploration as well. Ultimately, the students were challenged to join in an undergraduate research effort destined to become a published book that would tell the story of the Jews of Berks County, a daunting task in many respects.