Jews That Came to Oregon

 Nadene Goldfoot

We have 3 types of Jews;  the Mizrachim, Sephardim and Ashkenazim.  The Mizrachim found new shelter in and around Israel at the fall of the 2nd Temple in 70 CE in Jerusalem, and the Sephardim are Jews that made their way to Spain, and after 1492 to Portugal, and the Ashkenazim were taken from Rome  to Germany.  A few made their way to Oregon in the 1800s.  

 

 This is Beth Elohim Synagogue built by the Sephardic Jews in Charleston, South Carolina, dedicated in 1794.  This year marked that more Jews lived here than any other city in the country.  This drawing was by Solomon Carvalho, Courtesy from AJHS. It is built in the Sephardic style.  

After America was discovered, the Sephardim started immigrating there  after the Mayflower had sailed in 1620.  These Jews came from 1654 to 1820.  They had a Spanish-Portuguese background and settled in 6 cities along the Eastern seaboard:  New York, Newport, Philadelphia, Richmond, Charleston and Savannah.

The Sephardim"were proud and aristocratic people, carrying the memory of the Golden Age in Iberia (Spain) to the more primitive American colonies.  Their occupations had been merchants, shippers, purveyors, and artisans.  The American Revolution of 1776 had about 2,500 Jews living in America.  By 1820 there were 5,000.  In 1720 more Ashkenazim from Central and Eastern European areas were living in America than the Sephardim.  The Sephardim were the dominate culture which lasted into the next century.  Jews supported the Revolution.  In fact, the Jews of New York and Newport resettled their families into Connecticut and Philadelphia because they were not willing to live under British rule.  George Washington had made it clear that all men were equal before the law.  This was a first in Western history that the age-old religious barriers had been so fully renounced. 

                                            

Latecomers of Sephardim came to Portland from Turkey and established the Ahavath Achim Synagogue.  They came from the Island of Rhodes and Mainland Turkey in the early 1900s.  They welcome Jews of all background.  My Ashkenazi cousin married a Sephardi-Turkish person and attend here.  It's happening in Israel, too, that Jews intermarry other Jews.  Here, they still maintain Ladino-Sephardic customs of the Ottoman Empire days.  

                                                                            

 The peddler at a farm in about 1850.  German Jewish immigrants began life in America as peddlers, which my grandfather did when he came to Portland in about 1905 and lived in South Portland, the Jewish area near the synagogues.  He died in 1912, father of 3 with one still on the way in his horse and wagon accident.  He had no I.D. on him or his wagon.  Unconscious, he was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital, in a different location than today.  He died, having never woken up.  

The German Period came along  from 1820 to about 1880.  The Jewish population increased sharply from about 5,000 in 1820 to more than a quarter of a million by 1880, a result of Jewish immigration from Central Europe with many from the Pale of Settlement, land held by Catherine II of Russia. The pecking order was the established Sephardim looking down on the poor German peddlers.    

Jews replaced the "Yankee" peddlers who found work in New England.  A Jewish organization got my grandfather's horse and wagon for him.  He could have dreamed of having a store of his own, for in Lithuania it was impossible for Jews to ge a license to open a sedentary business.  

Herman Ehrenberg may have been the first Jew to enter Oregon.  He had been in Texas fighting for independence and arrived in Astoria in 1844.  

The earliest known for sure was Jacob Goldsmith and Lewis May who came to Portland in 1849 and had a general merchandise store on Front Avenue.  May was born in Worms, Germany, a very famous Jewish center, and emigrated to America in 1840.  First he settled in Shreveport, Louisiana.  Most German Jews had come from Bavaria.

Goldsmith came from Bavaria, Germany, and came to Portland from San Francisco.  They helped form the city's 1st Masonic Lodge in 1850, and remained for 2 years.  Goldsmith returned to San Francisco and May to New York where he was interested in railroads and banking.                                    

Temple Beth Israel, Portland, Oregon -- a grand example of Byzantine architecture. This beautiful synagogue is home to a Reform Jewish congregation.

In 1851, Simon and Jacob Blumauer arrived in Portland from Bavaria. They had a retail store on Front Avenue, and Simon became a prominent figure where he was president of Temple Beth Israel for 26 years.  

In 1852, 5  members of the Haas family arrived from Germany, brothers Samuel, Kalman and Charles and their cousins Abe and Jacob, began a grocery store in Portland.  

In 1853 came the 1st Jewish woman, Mrs. Weinshank, who opened a boarding house for Jewish bachelors.  

Usually the Jewish men spread out during the 1850s to service farm communities with their peddling.  In 1852, JB and Maier Hirsch, brothers,  came from the state of Wurttemberg in Germany and by 1854 moved to Salem and had a general merchandise store.  Their brothers Solomon, Edward and Leopold Hirsch arrived during the 1850s to help them.  After retailing for many years in Salem, The Dalles and Silverton, Solomon became a partner in Fleischner, Mayer & Co. in Portland, a wholesale house and the largest Jewish business in the Northwest.  

                                              

Gold mining was going on in California and Downieville was one of many gold mining towns that mushroomed then  Jews often worked in such towns on their way to Oregon.  Aaron Meier, founder of Meier & Frank, arrived in this town in 1855 to help his brothers in their general merchandise store.  By 1940 it looked much different. 

                                                

Born in 1831, by the time he was 26, Aaron Meier rented a 35 X 50 foot space and began selling dry goods at 137 Front Street in Portland in 1857. His father died in 1864 and Aaron Meier went back to Germany to collect his inheritance and he got married as well. When he returned, he set up shop in larger quarters (a 25 X 100 foot space) at 136 Front St.

                                                         

                   Take the bus and go to Meier & Frank downtown.

        Their window display was worth walking around to see-a bit of heaven, especially at seasonal holidays.  

Resource:

The Jews of Oregon 1850-1950 by Steven Lowenstein

http://www.pdxhistory.com/html/meier_-_frank.html