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LAWRENCE: New Jersey attracted Jewish immigrants

By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
   When the Jews immigrated to the United States from Europe, their first stop was the tenements of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, right?
   Well, not exactly, said Michael Aaron Rockland.
   Many of them skipped the Lower East Side and fanned out to New Jersey — both urban and rural. They also headed for points west, such as Chicago and San Francisco.
   Mr. Rockland should know. He and his wife, Patricia M. Ard, are the co-authors of “The Jews of New Jersey,” which is a pictorial history of Jewish settlements in New Jersey. He is a professor of American Studies at Rutgers University.
   With a liberal sprinkling of period photographs, Mr. Rockland outlined the history of Jewish settlement in New Jersey before an audience of about 50 people at Adath Israel Congregation on March 13. It was sponsored by the congregation’s Adult Education Committee.
   The Jews actually came to the New World in several waves, beginning with the Sephardic Jews who settled in the colonies in the 1600s, he said. The Sephardic Jews are those of Spanish, Portuguese or Mediterranean origin.
   The Sephardic Jews fled Spain and Portugal in the 1600s to avoid the Inquisition, Mr. Rockland said. They went to Holland and then to Brazil, which was under Dutch control. When the Portuguese wrested control of Brazil back from the Dutch, the Jews headed for Manhattan — also under Dutch control, he said.
   Toward the middle of the 1800s, the next wave of Jewish settlers immigrated to the United States, Mr. Rockland said. They were mostly German Jews. Many of them became known as the merchant princes because they founded Macy’s, Gimbel’s, Stern’s and Orhbach’s department stores, he said.
   The late 1800s and early 1900s brought another wave of Jews to the United States, predominantly from eastern European countries, he said. This is the group that is historically linked to the tenement housing on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
   But Ellis Island — the point of entry for many immigrants, including the Jews — did not always feed the immigrants to lower Manhattan, he said. In fact, two of three Jews who landed at Ellis Island quickly made their way into New Jersey. They boarded the Central New Jersey Railroad in Jersey City and got off the train in Newark, Trenton and Camden.
   Trenton was a popular destination for those immigrants, many of whom settled in the area that now is occupied by the Hughes Justice Complex, and that was known informally as “Jewtown.”
   One of the photographs Mr. Rockland showed was of Kohn’s Bakery at Market and Broad streets in Trenton. Bakery owner Samuel Kohn frequently ran afoul of the blue laws, which banned stores from being open Sundays, he said.
   This presented a problem for Kohn’s Bakery and its customers, he said. The Jews observe the Sabbath on Saturday and open their businesses Sunday. Mr. Kohn would bake Saturday night and open the store Sunday. But the police enforced the blue laws and issued him a summons for being open Sunday.
   ”This went on for quite some time,” Mr. Rockland said.
   Eventually, the bakery owner and the chief of police reached an accommodation. It was agreed Mr. Kohn would cover the storefront with a cloth to indicate it was closed, but, in reality, the Jewish customers were directed to use the rear door to the bakery.
   While many Jews owned businesses, some found other means to support themselves, Mr. Rockland said. He showed a photograph of Michael Schlossberg, taken in Trenton on the corner of Lamberton and Market streets in front of Ben’s Delicatessen. Mr. Schlossberg was a professional boxer.
   ”This is a very important point,” he said. “You can tell the history of the United States through boxing. Who wants to make a living getting smashed in the face? The latest immigrants — the Irish, the Jews and now the Latinos. Getting hit in the face to make a living has some appeal.”
   Newark also attracted many Jewish immigrants, Mr. Rockland said. Many started out as peddlers. When they made enough money, they sent for their families to join them. Some opened stores, such as the Lewitt family, of Newark, he said. That family eventually opened three pharmacies in the city.
   Sometimes, though, the immigrant husband “forgot” to arrange for his family to join him in the United States. Bella Schwartz’s first husband settled in the United States, and they corresponded frequently, Mr. Rockland said.
   ”He wrote to her a lot, and then the letters tapered off,” Mr. Rockland said. “She got some money together and came over (to the United States) with their children. She found him in Elizabeth. He had married another woman, and they had a family.”
   She found a job in New Brunswick and soon met Joseph Schwartz, who also had children from a previous marriage, he said. They married and had more children together. They moved across the Raritan River to Highland Park where they raised their blended family.
   Many Jews also settled in New Brunswick, which at one point had the largest population of Sephardic Jews outside of New York City, Mr. Rockland said.
   To reinforce the point, he showed a photograph of the Paris Grocery Co., operated by the Naar family. The name of the store on the plate glass window was written in Ladino, which is a mixture of Spanish and Hebrew.
   American Jews were not immune to anti-Semitism, Mr. Rockland said. The Ivy League colleges, which include Princeton University, had quotas on the number of Jewish students who were admitted, he said, pointing out the irony that Yale University’s seal is written in Hebrew letters.
   Mr. Rockland showed a photograph of Albert Einstein, who had immigrated to the United States from Germany prior to World War II and who was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
   He explained Mr. Einstein was helping the three Jewish Princeton University students form the Princeton University Student Hebrew Society. To the non-Jewish world, “Hebrew” was a more attractive word than “Jew,” he said.