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Jews in Philadelphia can trace their history back to Colonial America. Jews have lived in Philadelphia since the arrival of William Penn in 1682.
Colonial History
Jewish traders have operated in southeastern Pennsylvania since at least the 1650s. The first Jewish resident of the city on record was Jonas Aaron whose name appears in 1703 in the American Historical Register. Several Jewish families had immigrated to Philadelphia by 1734, as recorded by German traveler von Beck who listed them among the religious sects of the town. Nathan Levy purchased ground for Jewish burial in 1738, obtained the grant on September 25, 1740, and is cared for by Congregation Mikveh Israel.
In the War of Independence
Many Jews in Philadelphia took a prominent part in the War of Independence. Leading up to the conflict, several Jewish merchants and other citizens of Philadelphia signed the Non-Importation Resolutions. By doing so, they agreed "not to have any goods shipped from Great Britain until after the repeal of the Stamp Act." This was officially adopted on October 25, 1765. The Jewish signers included Benjamin Levy, David Franks, Samson Levy, Hyman Levy Jr., Mathias Bush, Moses Mordecai, Michael Gratz, and Barnard Gratz. The last two were brothers who had left Upper Silesia in Germany about 1755 and settled in Philadelphia.
In 1777, just after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, the following Jews agreed to accept the colonial paper money sanctioned by the king in lieu of gold and silver: Solomon Aaron, Joseph Solomon Kohn, Solomon Marache, Moses Mordecai, Barnard Soliman, and David Franks. Of these, Moses Mordecai and David Franks had signed the Non-Importation Resolutions.
During the conflict, David Franks was conspicuous for his loyalty to the British cause, being the English agent in charge of the prisoners; his daughter, Rebecca Franks, took part in the "Mischianza," the famous fête given in honor of General Howe during the British occupancy of Philadelphia. The majority of the Jews of the city, however, supported the American cause. Col. David Salisbury Franks was aide-de-camp to General Benedict Arnold at Philadelphia in 1779; Solomon Bush was major of the Pennsylvania militia; Col. Isaac Franks served with distinction in the war, as did Philip Moses, Russell and Benjamin Nones. Haym Solomon made loans to individuals in Congress, which were never repaid; his services as a financial agent during the war were invaluable. Another creditor of the Continental Congress was Aaron Levy, and his loans, like nearly all the others, were never fully repaid. At the close of the war the Jewish population of Philadelphia amounted to almost 500. In 1801, Rebecca Gratz helped establish the Female Association for the Relief of Women and Children in Reduced Circumstances, which helped women whose families were suffering after the American Revolutionary War.
Congregation Mikveh Israel
Congregation Mikveh Israel, the first Jewish congregation in Philadelphia, had its beginnings about 1745 and is believed to have worshiped in a small house in Sterling Alley. In 1761, owing to the influx of Spanish and Portuguese Jews from England, the Netherlands and the West Indies, the question of building a synagogue was raised, but nothing was then accomplished in that direction. In 1773, when Bernard Gratz was parnas and Solomon Marache treasurer, a subscription was started "in order to support our holy worship and establish it on a more solid foundation." The number of Jewish residents in Philadelphia was suddenly increased at the outbreak of the American Revolution by the influx of Jewish patriots from New York, which had been captured by the British (Sept., 1776). The congregation removed from the house in Sterling Alley and then occupied quarters in Cherry Alley, between Third and Fourth streets.
The building in Cherry Alley, which had sufficed for the few families in the city, became inadequate, and steps were taken to secure a more commodious building. Gershom Mendes Seixas, who had fled from New York to Connecticut, was requested to act as the first rabbi of the reorganized congregation. The estimate for the new building was £600, and the subscription being inadequate, Haym Salomon, the banker and financial agent of the Continental Congress, agreed to pay one-fourth the cost. A lot was purchased in Cherry street, near Third street, and a suitable building erected. The governor of Pennsylvania and his official family were invited to attend the dedication ceremonies, which were held on September 13, 1782. At this time the congregation had over 100 members; its officers were Jonas Phillips (president), Michael Gratz, Solomon Marache, Solomon Myers Cohen, and Simon Nathan. On November 25, 1783, New York was evacuated by the British, and many of the members of the congregation returned to their former homes. The congregation also started Mikveh Israel Cemetery.
It is estimated that in 1775, the city of Philadelphia had a population of approximately 35,000 of whom 300 were Jewish. Mikveh Israel counted among its members revolutionary patriots including Jonas Phillips, the Gratz family, and Haym Solomon who financed the war.
When Washington was elected president of the United States the Congregation Mickvé Israel, together with the congregations of New York, Charleston, and Richmond, sent a congratulatory address, to which Washington replied (1790).
After Congregation Shearith Israel recalled the Rev. Gershom Mendez Seixas to New York, Congregation Mickvé Israel elected the Rev. Jacob Raphael Cohen in his stead. The latter had officiated as Chazzan of the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue in Montreal and had served in a like capacity in New York during the British occupation. He ministered to the Congregation Mickvé Israel until his death in Sept., 1811. As a result of the departure of its members, in 1788 the congregation encountered financial difficulties. A subscription list was started to meet the existing debts, and among those who contributed to it were Benjamin Franklin and David Rittenhouse. From this time on the congregation was ceaseless in its religious and charitable activities, and when Isaac Leeser's incumbency began, in 1829, it was, perhaps, the best-known synagogue in the United States. In 1815 Emanuel Nunes Carvalho was elected minister and continued in that capacity until his death in 1817; he was succeeded in 1824 by Abraham Israel Keys.
Mikveh Israel erected its first building in 1782 on Cherry Alley, as well as a parsonage, school, mikvah, and oven for Matza baking for Passover. A commemorative marker stands at that place. When the 1782 building became inadequate, the synagogue built a larger synagogue on the same designed by William Strickland, a leading architect. Prior to the Civil War (1861-1865) as the Jewish population grew and prospered, an elegant building was constructed on 7th Street, north of Arch designed by John McArthur Jr. (later, architect of City Hall of Philadelphia). Many Jews moved to the area between Broad and 16th Streets, north of Girard Avenue. A new building was constructed at Broad and York Streets in 1909, flanked by Gratz and Dropsie Colleges. Samuel Elkin and Henry G. Freeman Jr. donated $100,000; $40,500 for the site, $59,000 for the building in memory of Abraham and Eve Elkin.
Gratz College, a private, coeducational Jewish college in Melrose Park, Pennsylvania and traces its origins to 1856 when banker, philanthropist and communal leader Hyman Gratz, and the Hebrew Education Society of Philadelphia (established in 1849 by Rebecca Gratz and Isaac Leeser) joined together to establish a trust to create a Hebrew teachers college. The amount of the endowment was nearly $200,000, worth $6.4 million in 2019.
German Immigration and Reform
Congregation Rodeph Shalom was founded in 1795, and is the first Ashkenazic congregation established in the Western Hemisphere. In the last decade of the 18th century, a small group of Orthodox Jews from Germany, the Netherlands and Poland formed a minyan to worship in a manner consistent with their shared religious background. At first, services were held in various locations in Olde Philadelphia. In 1866, the congregation built its first sanctuary. Frank Furness, considered the most talented and exciting Philadelphia architect of his time, designed a Moorish-style synagogue on Broad and Mt. Vernon Streets.
The congregation soon outgrew its building and replaced it with the current structure, completed in 1928. Inspired by the great synagogue of Florence, Italy, Rodeph Shalom is one of the few synagogues in this country that retains the Byzantine-Moorish style. It was designed by the firm of Simon and Simon, which built the Fidelity Building on Broad Street. The sanctuary seats 1,640 people below star burst skylights. Its stained glass windows are one of the few remaining collections from the renowned D'Ascenzo Studio. The majestic bronze-and-enamel doors of the Torah ark grace the bimah. The D'Ascenzo Studio also designed the sanctuary's walls, ceiling, and dome, along with the carpet and ornamentation. The Broad Street Foyer houses the Leon J. and Julia S. Obermayer Collection of Jewish ritual art. More than 500 objects of Jewish ceremonial art from around the world dating back to the 18th century are on display. The Philadelphia Jewish Museum gallery, dedicated to Jacob Gutman, sponsors three to four exhibits of contemporary Jewish art each year, and is open for public viewing.
The Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel was organized March 21, 1847. Its first Reader was B. H. Gotthelf, who held services in a hall at No. 528 N Second Street. The Reform movement, which had originated in Germany, soon extended itself to America, and L. Naumberg, Solomon Deutsch, and David Einhorn (1861–66) furthered its progress in this congregation. The first marked change in the character of the liturgy took place in 1856. Samuel Hirsch succeeded to the rabbinate in 1866; he introduced many changes in the service. In 1887 Joseph Krauskopf was elected rabbi; and contributed much to the success and standing of this congregation. It was during his incumbency that the Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel became the largest in Philadelphia. It had about 700 members in 1904. Its synagogue was situated on Broad Street, above Columbia Avenue from 1892 to 1957. In 1893 Joseph Leonard Levy was elected associate rabbi, but he resigned in 1902 to take up a rabbinical position in Pittsburg. The congregation supported a free public library and a reading-room prior to the opening of Philadelphia's Free Library. Senior Rabbis of Keneseth Israel since 1923 when Krauskopf died include William Fineshriber, Bertram W. Korn, Simeon Maslin and Lance J. Sussman.
In 1876, in commemoration of the centennial of American Independence, the Order B'nai B'rith and Israelites of America erected in Fairmount Park a statue representing Religious Liberty. It was designed by Moses Ezekiel, and was the first public monument erected by Jews in the United States.
In Philadelphia there were in 1904, not including lodges, over 160 Jewish organizations, of which over 50 are synagogues; the remainder consisting of hospitals, foster homes, Sunday-schools, benevolent associations, colleges, young men's Hebrew associations, social clubs, literary societies, etc. (A list of local organizations was published in the "American Jewish Year Book" for 5661 [1900-1].)
Eastern European Immigration (1881-1924)
In the early years of Eastern European Jewish mass immigration in the 1880s, a size-able Jewish quarter was established in a well-defined area of old Philadelphia, today known as Society Hill and Queen Village. In The Presbyterian, a weekly journal published in Philadelphia in 1889 for the Presbyterian community, the editor wrote: “In Philadelphia we are likely to have a Jewish section, where emigrants from Eastern Europe will congregate. From Fifth Street to the Delaware River and south of Lombard Street these foreign Jews are crowding in, and being very poor, the Hebrew Charities are drawn upon heavily.” The Jewish press saw a more confined quarter, extending from Spruce Street in the north to Christian Street in the South and from 3rd Street to 6th Street east to west. This was at a time when sweatshops were moving south from Kensington to Northern Liberties and then south of Market Street to Bank and Strawberry Streets. At this time, German-Jewish wholesale clothiers, like Snellenberg's, had their businesses on N. 3rd Street between Market and Arch streets. Many of these buildings stand today.
The Society Hachnasath Orechim, or Wayfarers' Lodge, was organized November 16, 1890, and chartered April 29, 1891; it was one of the most active charitable associations in Philadelphia. The Hebrew Literature Society, founded in 1885, opened a new building at 310 Catherine street. The Home for Hebrew Orphans, The Jewish Sheltering Home for the Homeless and Aged, the Mount Sinai Hospital Association, the Pannonia Beneficial Association, and the Central Talmud Torah were all situated in the southern portion of the city. In addition, the newcomers have many social, political, and literary organizations.
When immigrant steamers from Liverpool would arrive, trains of the Pennsylvania Railroad backed down onto the piers of the American Line to whisk away immigrants on their journeys to Chicago and places out west. A size-able number of Russian-Jewish immigrants stayed in Philadelphia and settled in the Jewish quarter. Many concentrated around the eastern end of South Street for three primary reasons: rent was inexpensive; housing was near the sweatshops; and the neighborhood was near the Emigrant Depot at the foot of Washington Avenue and the Delaware River. Prior to 1900, few Jews lived south of Washington Avenue. The Jewish Quarter of Philadelphia was bordered by Polish immigrants and Irish to the east, by African-Americans to the west and Italians to the southwest and, to the south, by Irish. Crossing well defined boundaries was dangerous for the immigrants. Curbside and pushcart markets were established; teams of horses flying over cobblestone streets made daily runs to the Dock Street wholesale market. Many Jewish immigrants opened businesses on Dock Street, that continue to operate to the present day including M. Levin & Co, Inc.
Central to the new immigrant neighborhood was South Street, called “the great Street for Polish Jews and huckstering of every variety.” Some writers called it the Russian quarter because so many of the newcomers were from the Imperial Russian Empire. In 1887, the Public Ledger wrote: “On South Street many “neat” stores have been built and indications point to the further improvement of that old down-town avenue of retail trade.” Dock Street, the wholesale food market of its day, “is not a handsome street; it is old, full of crude commercial bustle in the hours of the day, and after night fall or in the early hours of the night until the nocturnal preparations for the next day begin, it is almost wholly deserted.” The first Yiddish theatre was in the center of the quarter, located at the corner of 5th and Gaskill Streets. It was here that actors of the Yiddish theatre performed, Jacob Adler and Boris Thomashevsky. In the 1890s, the S. 4th Street vegetable and meat market was started on the sidewalks; it eventually grew into the fabled S. 4th Street pushcart market, still remembered till this day.
Markets were located along S. 2nd Street, the Washington Market along Bainbridge Street from 3rd to 5th Streets and in the 4th Street pushcart market. Sweatshops in the quarter numbered over one hundred. On the 300 block of Lombard Street alone there were five sweatshops. After 1900, Jews moved south across Washington Avenue and within just a few years they lived in great numbers south of Washington Avenue and east of Broad Street. Many Jews in the clothing trade prospered during the 1920s and moved to West Philadelphia and Strawberry Mansion. After Congress cut off immigration from Eastern Europe in 1924, the old Jewish quarter began to die out. Although its demise was slowed, first by the Depression and then by the effects of World War II, outward movement from the quarter accelerated after the war ended. Today, there are four synagogues operating in the original Jewish quarter.
Two buildings originally built as synagogues—Congregation B'nai Abraham, 527 Lombard Street (built in 1910 and still continuing to operate and maintain a congregation), and nearby B’nai Rueben, 6th & Kater Streets (built in 1905 but used for commercial purposes since 1956, and converted residential in 2014) —survive.
Historic Congregation B'Nai Abraham is located in the Society Hill section of Center City Philadelphia, and is supported by a lay led leadership board who act as stewards of the historic building. The congregation was established in 1874 as the "Russian Shul" following a wave of immigration to the Jewish Quarter of Philadelphia at the time, fleeing from Czar Alexander II. It moved into present space around the 1910s, making it historically significant as the oldest building in Philadelphia that was originally constructed as a synagogue and has been in continuous use as such. With the departure of much of the neighborhood's Jewish population in the mid-twentieth century, the congregation was no longer able to support a full-time rabbi and frequently lacked a minyan for Shabbat services. In the early 21st century, it became affiliated with the Chabad movement and is now one of its two Center City synagogues.
Society Hill Synagogue, 418 Spruce Street, renovated and uses the historic building previously home to the Roumanian Shul from 1910 until the 1960s. Congregation Kesher Israel, 412 Lombard Street, acquired the former Universality Church building in 1889 and continues as an active Conservative synagogue.
Post World War II
In 1964, the Six Million Jewish Martyrs statue, the first public memorial in the United States in remembrance of the Holocaust, was unveiled at 16th Street and Benjamin Franklin Parkway. In 2018, The Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust Memorial Plaza was unveiled at the same site. In 1976, Mikveh Israel moved to Independence Mall, close to its original site, together with the National Museum of American Jewish History. The building opened on July 4, 1976, the Nation's Bicentennial. In August 2010, the National Museum of American Jewish History moved to new building at 5th and Market Streets. The synagogue is now the sole inhabitant of the current building. The former exhibit space is now the Social Hall, decorated with paintings dating from the 1700s to the present from the Archives. There is also an exhibit in the lobby.
