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    Reform Jews of Minneapolis
    Reform Jews of Minneapolis
    Reform Jews of Minneapolis
    Ebook199 pages53 minutes

    Reform Jews of Minneapolis

    By Rhoda Lewin

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    About this ebook

    The German Jews who began coming to Minneapolis in the 1850s quickly entered society as doctors, lawyers, professors, merchants, and leaders in clothing and cigar manufacturing. In 1878 they founded Shaarai Tov, now Temple Israel--one of the ten largest Reform congregations in the U.S. today. They also enjoyed a busy social and cultural life, and both husbands and wives involved themselves in social service and welfare organizations. Including historic and present-day photographs and tales of the community--schools, synagogues, organizations, and outdoor activities--this collection uncovers the challenges and triumphs of Reform Jews in Minneapolis.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439631287
    Reform Jews of Minneapolis
    Author

    Rhoda Lewin

    A community volunteer and historian, author Rhoda Lewin has been a columnist for American Jewish World, taught at the University of Minnesota, written articles on the Minneapolis Jewish community for Minnesota History and other publications, and is an elected member of the American Jewish Historical Society's Academic Council.

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      Book preview

      Reform Jews of Minneapolis - Rhoda Lewin

      MN.)

      One

      JOURNEY TO THE NEW WORLD DESTINATION MINNEAPOLIS

      In 1856 the Minnesota state legislature authorized a new town called Minneapolis. Hogs and chickens roamed the unpaved streets and it was against the law to drive any horse, mule or other animal at a rate of speed exceeding eight miles per hour, but the city was already the headquarters for the state’s rapidly growing flour-milling and lumber industries, and the German Jews who had begun coming to America in the 1850s had brought enough money with them to start small businesses. Minneapolis’s first Jewish citizen was Samuel Louchheim, who sold clothing and other supplies to the lumbermen and factory workers, and when Ralph Rees, whose descendants still live in Minneapolis, arrived in 1869, he also opened a clothing store on Washington Avenue, in the city’s first brick building.

      Then, in 1870, a Chicago fire killed hundreds of people and many Chicago residents moved to Minneapolis, including Jacob Cohen, Jacob Scholl, A. Krutzkoff, Joseph Robitshek, Simon Gittleson and Cyrus Rothschild. On April 23, 1872 the Minneapolis Morning Tribune reported that the city’s Jewish population consists of nine heads of families plus several single men and women, and in 1873 Jacob and Marichen Deutsch arrived just before the birth of their son, Henry—the first Jewish boy born in Minneapolis. When Max Segelbaum arrived in 1874 he also opened a dry goods store on Washington Avenue, and later he and his brother Sander opened Segelbaum Department Store, the first business on Nicollet Avenue. By the mid-1870s there were 172 Jews in a population that had grown from 13,000 to almost 40,000 in less than five years, and then, between 1877 and 1900, the city’s population more than quadrupled, to just over 200,000, and the Jewish population increased to 8,000, most of them East European Jews fleeing Russian pogroms. By now, though, many families whose descendants still live in Minneapolis—the Brins, Wolffs, Ehrlichs, Metzgers, Sulzbergers, Bernsteins, Werths, Wilkes, Mikolas, Jacobs, Weils, Weiskopfs, Kantrowitzes, and Rosenfields—owned some of the city’s largest businesses, including jewelry stores (S. Jacobs & Co.), clothing manufacturers (Robitshek, Frank and Heller), wallpaper sales (Kayser & Co.), cigar manufacturing and sales (S. Pflaum & Sons), and Monasch Lithographing Co. Isaac Kaufman and Louis Conhaim were the city’s leading life insurance salesmen; Emanuel Cohen served on the city’s first Charter Commission; Louis Levy organized the State Labor Bureau; and Simon Meyers was elected to the State Legislature in 1898. By 1907 University of Minnesota faculty included Temple Israel Rabbi Samuel Deinard as professor in Semitic Languages; attorney Robert Kolliner taught in the Law School; and a pioneering woman, Lillian Cohen, taught Chemistry. Emanuel Cohen, Simon Meyers, Henry Deutsch, Samuel Levy, Jonas Weil and Frank Dittenhoefer were now practicing law, and doctors practicing medicine included Emil Robitshek, Harry Cohen, Samuel Rosen, and George Gordon, a professor at Hamline University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons.

      This photograph and the top one on page 11 show the intersection of Washington Avenue with Nicollet and Hennepin Avenues in the 1890s. Washington Avenue was Minneapolis’s main street, with apartment buildings and row houses, 7 banks, 29 clothing stores, 11 hotels, a music academy, and entertainment halls where touring companies from New York performed vaudeville, Shakespeare, and tearful melodramas. In 1870 the city’s population was 13,000, but in ten years it had already grown to 40,000! (Courtesy of Temple Israel Archives and Minnesota Historical

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