Conference: "Jews & the American City: Planning, Developing, and Imagining Urban Space and Jewish Space,"

Conference: "Jews & the American City: Planning, Developing, and Imagining Urban Space and Jewish Space," Temple University, November 11, 2010

New York, NY. The former Froward Building,one of the first "Jewish" skyscrapers.

Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2005.

In the past half century American Jewish planners, architects and real estate developers have helped to transform American cities - often far outside traditional "Jewish space." A conference in Philadelphia addresses the causes, effects and significance of the Jewish contribution - or should it just be the "contribution by individual Jews" - to the modern American urbanism.

Conference Announcement:
Jews & the American City: Planning, Developing, and Imagining Urban Space and Jewish Space
Sponsored by Temple University's Feinstein Center for American Jewish History

Thursday, November 11, 2010
Edward H. Rosen Hillel Center, Temple University

An all day conference sponsored by Temple University's Feinstein Center for American Jewish History, the History Department at Temple University, the Center for Humanities at Temple, and the Foundation for Jewish Culture will explore the relationship between Jews and American urbanism. What role have Jews and Jewish ideals played in the redevelopment of urban space, especially over the last three decades? Practitioners in and scholars of the fields of urban development, urban planning and architecture, and urban politics will consider how we can understand American cityscapes in light of Jews' investment in the creation, destruction and re-creation of urban spaces and ideals. Among the individuals joining us in this discussion are Lizabeth Cohen, Deborah Dash Moore, Robert Fishman, Paul Levy, Max Page, Wendell Pritchett, Inga Saffron, and Tom Sugrue. A full program and information about attending the conference is available at http://www.temple.edu/feinsteinctr/.

Conference on Merchants Jews in the New World 1800-1900

I pass on information about an interesting upcoming conference to be held in early November. The Gomez House in Marlboro, New York, is one of only a few secular structures associated with early American merchant Jews, but it was these very Jews who funded the building of the first synagogues, including the famed Touro synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island. In the 19th century, the focus of this conference, merchant Jews - large scale and small - helped pave the expansion of America west. Some were peddlers (like my great-grandfather in Texas), and some operated large markets and stores. All helped supply farmers, miners, artisans and townsmen in cities and towns in nearly every state.

Conference on Merchants Jews in
the New World 1800-1900

Focus on Jewish Contributions to Economic Expansion of Retail, Industry and Finance in 19th century America

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Dr. Ruth Abrahams (212) 294-8329

New York, NY (September 29, 2010) The lesser-known aspects of the Jewish contribution to economic expansion in the United States during the 19th century will be the focus of a conference to be held at the Center for Jewish History on Sunday, November 7, 2010.

Called "Merchants Jews in the New World: 1800-1900," it is being sponsored by The Gomez Foundation for Mill House. It is part of their lead-up to the 300th anniversary of the construction of the Mill House, situated on the upper Hudson River, which was built by one of the earliest Jewish merchants in this country. Sessions will include a panel of presentation on 19th Century developments in three key areas: retail, industry and finance.

Gene Dattel, author of the recently published Cotton and Race in the Making of America: The Human Costs of Economic Power, will deliver the keynote address. He will be followed by a series of roundtable discussions, roundtable summaries, moderated discussions and more.

Participants will include Andrée Aelion Brooks, Jewish historian, journalist and author; Gene Dattel, financial historian and author; Kenneth Libo, Adjunct Professor of History, Hunter College; Bonnie S. Wasserman, Lecturer, Fordham University; Ainsley Henriques, historian; Kate Myslinski, genealogy researcher and writer and Ruth Abrahams, executive director of the Gomez Foundation.

The conference is the second of three to explore the theme of Jewish Merchants in the New World. Ruth Abrahams, executive director of the Gomez Foundation said, "We hope to encourage further dialogue on the topic of Jewish contributions to the founding and development of America." The prior year's conference, she noted, covered the early period, 1500-1800, and the 2011 conference will focus upon 1900-present.

The Center for Jewish History is located at 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011. A kosher continental breakfast and buffet lunch will be served. General registration costs $75. Seniors 60 and over, and students under 21, will be offered discount tickets at $65, along with members of the Center for Jewish History, their affiliates and Channel Thirteen. For more information email: gomez@cjh.org. To register, click here.

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Jewish Merchants in the New World:1500-1800, is sponsored by The Gomez Foundation for Mill House, a not-for-profit organization registered in the State of New York and established to support the preservation, conservation and public programs of the Gomez Mill House Historic Site and Museum in Orange County, New York, the oldest Jewish dwelling in America. The Gomez Mill House was founded in 1714, by Colonial American Jewish merchant and pioneer, Luis Moses Gomez, and was home to Revolutionary patriot Wolfert Acker, gentleman farmer William Henry Armstrong, Arts and Crafts paper artisan Dard Hunter, and social activist Martha Gruening. The Mill House is on the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places.

USA: Sukkahs for New York

Sukkahs for New York

Earlier in the summer I wrote in The Forward about the great Sukkah competition in New York called Sukkah City. The contest proved wildly popular with architects and artists from around the world and approximately 600 entries were received by the organizers. I’m not sure who was able to evaluate these for their faithfulness to halacha. Certainly the twelve chosen winners are imaginative designs but some may off the mark for religious observance. Maybe that should be so, since these winners were erected earlier this week on public land in Union Square, and I for one am always squeamish whenever I see any semblance of religious practice impinge on secular and pluralistic space. mJust as in America we must protect the right of religious practice; we must be equally clear about the separation of church (or synagogue or mosque) and state. Still, in Lower Manhattan, churchyards have always been seen as public open green spaces, offering respite from claustrophobia, so I think it OK if sukkahs occupy Union Square for forty-eight hours. What the radicals who used to demonstrate in Union Square would think I do not know, but the harvest holiday huts do seem in keeping with the new agrarian nature of the place, since the park is surrounded by what is now the city's best known farmer's market.

The panel of judges had no rabbis or Jewish scholars, but did include Pritzker prize-winning architect Thom Mayne, The New Yorker’s architecture critic, Paul Goldberger, NYU Environmental Health Clinic Director Natalie Jeremijenko, and designer Ron Arad. The winners were selected in a blind review, and include the Brooklyn-based firms Matter Architecture Practice; Bittertang, winners of the 2010 Architectural League Prize; and Solid Objectives – Idenburg Liu, winner of the 2010 MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program.

One structure, the "Fractured Bubble" designed by Babak Bryan and Henry Grosman was voted on by New Yorkers to stand throughout the week-long festival of Sukkot as the “People’s Choice Sukkah.” Selected entries are also being displayed in an exhibit at the Center for Architecture in New York City during the month of September. The process and results of the competition, along with construction documentation and critical essays, will be published in the forthcoming book "Sukkah City: Radically Temporary Architecture for the Next Three Thousand Years."

The twelve winning designs and a much larger selection of entries can be seen here and is worth the browsing time. I have not had a chance to look at the carefully yet, but when I do I'll have some additional comments on some of the most common design trends and some of my personal favorites.

USA: Forgotten Jewish Cemeteries

This blogger revealing forgotten gravestone fragments (ca. 1910) hidden by woods in Syracuse University.

USA: Forgotten Jewish Cemeteries
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) Sue Fishkoff of JTA has written an important reminder of the continuing state of neglect and decay of so many Jewish cemeteries in the United States. This is not a new problem, its been recognized for at least twenty years, but the solutions have been slow to develop. A few states like Massachusetts and Texas have innovative, cooperative and successful programs but their example still needs to be adopted nationwide.Some solutions are relatively easy and involve more will and time than big bucks. Much can be done to maintain small cemeteries on an occasional basis by volunteers from congregations and civic groups. Big old cemeteries, however need lots of money, and until living Jews are willing to tax themselves to help care for the dead, this problem will not go away. Some sort of cooperative fee or tax contributed by congregations, cemeteries and funeral homes would go a long way toward funding needed work. Unlike Poland and Ukraine, for example, where the needs far outstrip the resources of the existing Jews, this is not the case in the United States. Here there is no good excuse, just a different list of priorities.

Here is Sue's article. On a positive note she documents several cases where creative and energetic individuals are doing their part - with some success:

Shouldering the burden of forgotten cemeteries
By Sue Fishkoff
September 20, 2010
SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) --

The old Jewish cemetery in Eufaula, Ala., hasn’t been used in years.

“The monuments are just crumbling,” said Sara Hamm.

She and her family are the last Jews living in this once-booming cotton and railway town on the banks of the Chattahoochee River.

The Jewish cemetery’s first burial dates from 1845, when German Jews began arriving as merchants and dry goods salesmen. They bought a synagogue in 1873, but sold it in the early 1900s when their numbers dwindled to several dozen. The cemetery, with its 84 burial plots, fell into disrepair.

In the mid-1980s Hamm’s grandmother Jennie Rudderman began restoring it, righting headstones and clearing away brush. After she died in 1999, Hamm took over as volunteer caretaker. But the job is wearing her down.

“It’s been left to its own accord now, like everything else in small-town America,” she said.

Similar stories repeat across the land, from the rust belt of western Pennsylvania to the Bible Belt in the South. As factories closed down and populations shifted westward, once-thriving Jewish communities declined and synagogues shut their doors. The only thing left behind, in many cases, were the cemeteries -- with no one, or almost no one, to take care of them.

“The Jewish community knows there is a problem of abandoned cemeteries, but they feel it’s someone else’s problem, or the problem of the descendants of those buried there,” said Gary Katz, president of the 4-year-old Community Association for Jewish At-Risk Cemeteries, or CAJAC, which spearheads efforts to clean and maintain distressed cemeteries in New York City. “But throughout Jewish history, cemeteries have been a communal responsibility.”

The Jewish Cemetery Project of the International Association of Jewish Genealogy Societies lists 1,375 Jewish cemeteries in the United States and 72 in Canada, but project coordinator Ellen Renck says more may exist.

Read the entire article here.