Jewish Philadelphia: A Guide to Its Sights & Stories

By Linda Nesvisky

Experience Philadelphia's Jewish history with a nine-site walking tour through the city's oldest streets. Discover the treasures of the Rosenbach Museum and Library and stories of the immigrant experience at the new National Museum of American Jewish History. Find out how the Liberty Bell became inscribed with a passage from the Torah and where to find some of the best Reubens in the city. Encouraged by Penn's charter of religious tolerance, Jewish people have flocked to Philadelphia since before the Revolutionary War, and in turn they have made remarkable contributions to the City of Brotherly Love. With a walking tour and a series of intriguing vignettes, tour guide Linda Nesvisky leads readers down colonial streets to discover the surprising history of the Jewish community in Philadelphia into the twenty-first century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Mar 19, 2010
• ISBN: 9781614232094

Linda Nesvisky

Linda Nesvisky is a prize-winning artist, and her photographs have appeared in numerous publications. She studied art and art history at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh and has a special interest in history and architecture. Linda has traveled throughout the world and, most notably, lived for many years in Israel. There she maintained an art studio in Jerusalem, taught at various schools and served as tour guide in the Old City's Jewish Quarter, where she lived in a restored thirteenth-century home. Today she maintains her studio in Philadelphia, where she also works as a city tour guide and runs ShalomPhillyTours for tours of Jewish interest. She is a member of Congregation Keneseth Israel, where she serves on the Adult Education Committee and is part of Temple Judea Museum's artist cooperative.

Book preview

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INTRODUCTION

It’s widely agreed that the capital of Jewish America is New York City. That may be true today, but it wasn’t always so—no more than Washington, D.C., was always the capital of the United States. You know, of course, that the original capital city of this great country was Philadelphia, the very place in which the whole notion of independence and a federal union of the colonies was designed and hammered out. Well, in many respects, the story of Jewish America was formed right along with the new nation—right here in the City of Brotherly Love.

Philadelphia remains one of the centers of Jewish life in America. According to a recent census (Jewish Population Study of Greater Philadelphia) commissioned by the Jewish Federation in 2009, there are 215,000 Jews residing in the greater metropolitan area. Equally significant, Philadelphia is home to some of the nation’s greatest American Jewish institutions, with special value for historians, researchers and genealogists (take that, New York!). But even Jewish Philadelphians may not always be aware of the history of their forefathers in this city, how and why they came here and the impact they and Jewish thinking had on the founding of the new nation.

In this regard it’s no accident that the National Museum of American Jewish History is located in Philadelphia and not in New York or Washington or Los Angeles. It is entirely appropriate that the museum is just a few steps from the church in which George Washington worshipped, the building in which the Declaration of Independence was drafted and the chambers in which the U.S. Congress first assembled. That’s because both the United States and the American Jewish story were essentially established on the same ground—on the same cobblestoned streets and alongside the same riverfronts.

A bird’s-eye view of Philadelphia.

Yet this is history too little known, and that’s why this book was written—to highlight for visitors (and natives) some fascinating stories about Jews and Philadelphia.

So get ready to enjoy some history, some biography, some art and some culture. (Don’t worry, I’ll also tell you where you can get a good nosh.) Then come take a walk for an hour or two. This book will help you see where so much important history occurred, both Jewish and American. Along the way, we’ll share some fascinating stories and hear about some outstanding individuals and some astonishing ideas.

A note on the book’s organization: First I offer you ten snapshot vignettes concerning the most important sites and institutions in the Greater Philadelphia area. Then, for our walking tour, I’ve selected nine of the most significant central locations regarding Jewish history in colonial Philadelphia. Our stops are based on the walking tours that I’ve been leading since the formation of ShalomPhillyTours in 2005. I created those tours because, after guiding in Philadelphia for some twenty years, I felt that not enough Jewish history was being covered here. I also include information on the brand-new National Jewish American History Museum on Independence Mall.

Part I

PERSONALITIES, PLACES, RESOURCES

THE HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL ON THE PARKWAY

Ask sculptors when it became apparent to them that three-dimensional art would be their chosen form of expression, and almost to a person they will answer that it was realized from a young age. This was the case with Nathan Rapoport, the creator of Monument to the Six Million Martyrs, located on the magnificent Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Rapoport decided to be a sculptor by the age of fifteen. But life’s unhappy experiences made him dedicate himself to memorializing the Holocaust. This was his sole theme. His monumental sculptures are located throughout the world. Philadelphia’s is the first Holocaust memorial sculpture in North America. Michael Kimmelman, art critic of the New York Times, summarizes Rapoport as a realist sculptor of dead and battling Jews.

Rapoport was born in Warsaw in 1911. In 1936, he was offered the opportunity to study in France and Italy but opted for the Soviet Union when the Soviets invaded Poland. In Russia, he acquired a studio and began creating Soviet-style sculptures. He developed his socialist realism style during this time and continued to work in the official style of the Soviet Union until his death.

At war’s end, he returned to his native city to study art at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Art. As a Polish citizen he was entitled to a free college education. Still, Rapoport had to have been a determined student to contemplate returning to the graveyard of Poland. Indeed, when his studies were completed in 1950, he immigrated to the United States—but not before erecting his first monumental sculpture, Wall of Remembrance, in 1948 in the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Holocaust Memorial on the Ben Franklin Parkway. Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.

Rapoport was eventually commissioned by the State of Israel to create the monument to Mordechai Anilewicz at Kibbutz Yad Mordechai. Anilewicz was the leader of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Another commission allowed Rapoport to create The Last March for the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum and Memorial in Jerusalem. A Rapoport sculpture in New York City’s Liberty State Park in the Battery is of a GI carrying a concentration camp inmate to freedom.

Philadelphia’s Monument to the Six Million Martyrs is located at the beginning of the Ben Franklin Parkway at Sixteenth Street, one block north of City Hall. It was made in Italy and installed in 1964. On Holocaust Remembrance Day, hundreds gather here for a memorial service.

The sculpture depicts men, women and children intertwined with flames swirling upward to resemble a menorah at the top. The intertwining of limbs also suggests the burning bush (Exodus 3:2). The style of this sculpture recalls elements of sculptors Jacques Lipchitz and Auguste Rodin, both friends of Rapoport and both having works only blocks from each other very nearby.

A plan is in the works to significantly enhance the Holocaust Memorial site. The Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance Foundation is working with Israeli architect Moshe Safdie to create the Holocaust Memorial Foundation’s Center for Human Rights Education. Over $3 million has been raised toward this goal. The Philadelphia City Council also plans an educational facility to boost the prominence of the memorial, with an audiovisual center. This new center is supported by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the City of Philadelphia and the Fairmont Park Commission.

The Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia is in charge of the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day event, usually occurring in May. Adam Kessler is the director of JCRC and can be reached at [e-mail].

Architect’s digital rendering of the Holocaust Memorial Foundation’s Center for Human Rights Education alongside the Memorial Sculpture on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Moshe Safdie Associates.

The Benjamin Franklin Parkway is often referred to as our city’s cultural mile to distinguish it from the historical mile around Independence Hall area. The Parkway houses the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Franklin Institute, the Philadelphia Free Library, the Rodin Museum and, soon, the Barnes Museum. The Parkway was begun in 1916. Paul Cret prepared the original plan. When William Penn planned our city in 1682, it was a grid. The Parkway is Philadelphia’s only diagonal boulevard—a major deviation of that plan. This idea came about when the City Beautiful movement began to sweep the nation following Chicago’s World Columbian Exposition of 1894. Its ideology promoted spacious expanses and monumental grandeur in the modern city.

Beaux Arts was the style of the time, and Philadelphia’s Parkway Commission felt that a diagonal element in our city was a dynamic way to introduce and promote this avant-garde thinking. The Parkway has two boulevards separated by trees and a green belt, as well as two monumental fountains. It was modeled after the Champs-Élysées in Paris, with flags from every country displayed along its length in alphabetical order. But because the Holocaust Memorial stands at the beginning of the Parkway, the Israeli flag is the first in the parade of flags. It is a fine setting for Rapoport’s memorial sculpture.

The Parkway begins at Love Park behind City Hall and terminates at the steps of the Museum of Art. The museum landing commands an excellent view of Philadelphia’s skyline. Stand in the center of the landing to view it properly and then look down for the embedded footprints of Rocky, the Sylvester Stallone boxing hero. This site is almost as popular with tourists as Independence Hall.

THE ROSENBACH MUSEUM AND LIBRARY: THE JEWEL IN THE CROWN

The Rosenbach (pronounced Roe-sen-back) Museum and Library is a welcoming and unique treasure in Philadelphia. Though off the beaten tourist path, at 2008–2010 Delancey Place, it is within walking distance of the historic mile area. It is easily accessible by bus no. 17 running westward along Market Street. It is a short walk from the Mikveh Israel Cemetery located on Ninth and Spruce Streets. Walk west along Spruce Street, and Delancey is a quick left turn between Spruce and Pine. The area is Society Hill, one of the two earliest neighborhoods in Philadelphia. Charming eighteenth-century homes dot narrow scenic lanes, and horse-drawn carriages help to set the scene back to the colonial and federal periods.

The museum was home to two brothers. Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach (1876–1952) collected books and rare manuscripts, including Judaica. His business-savvy brother Philip (1863–1953) collected rare prints, drawings, paintings and antique furniture. The love of books and manuscripts was ignited for A.S.W. while he was working in Uncle Mo’s (Moses Polock) bookstore. A.S.W. became so skilled at collecting that other collectors and institutions, such as the British Museum, feared his determination. Once he set his heart on something to add to his collection, he customarily outbid all competitors. But both brothers contributed toward making this museum and library a special place.

Newly restored, this outstanding residence was designed by the leading Philadelphia architect of the time, Frank Furness. Its beauty, along with the brothers’ prized collections, combined to place the Rosenbach Museum and Library on the National