|
||||||
Jewish Community of New Haven, ConnecticutHistory / Synagogues / Jewish Life in New Haven Today / Scope / Senator Joseph I. Lieberman / LinksHistoryNew Haven, Connecticut, was settled by European immigrants in 1638. The first Jews, the brothers Jacob and Solomon Pinto, arrived in New Haven in 1758. In 1772 President Ezra Stiles of Yale College recorded in his diary the arrival of an unnamed Venetian Jewish family who observed the Sabbath in traditional Jewish manner, "worshiping by themselves in a room in which were lights and a suspended lamp." He noted that this was purely private Jewish worship, since the Venetians were too few to constitute a synagogue quorum, "so that if thereafter there should be a synagogue in New Haven, it must not be dated from this." A slow influx of Jewish settlers began about 1840. Families from Bavaria, fleeing economic and social depression, soon constituted a minyan, which became congregation Mishkan Israel. The congregation acquired a burial ground in 1843. Mishkan Israel was New England's second congregation and the 14th Jewish congregation established in the United States. Soon after its founding, divergences in religious approach arose, one in the direction of orthodoxy, the other toward reform. The first Jewish refugees arrived from Russia in February 1882, and were followed by a steady influx of Russian-Jewish families. By 1887 the Jewish population had grown to about 3,200. In the next decade it grew to about 8,000 and the increase was greatly accelerated in the wake of the Kishinev pogrom of 1903. By the beginning of World War I, New Haven Jewry numbered about 20,000.
The first congregation organized by the immigrants from East Europe was the B'nai Jacob congregation (1882) which grew into New Haven's largest conservative congregation. The pioneer German Jews established the Hebrew Benevolent Society to assist the Russian-Jewish immigrants, and the latter established the Hebrew Charity Society in 1885. In 1910, the sisterhood of Mishkan Israel began to devote itself to charitable enterprise, opening a special office for the purpose. In 1919, the three charitable undertakings were formally organized into the United Jewish Charities. SynagoguesThe Westville Synagogue Beth Hamedrash Hagodol “B’nai Israel”Until 1854 the pioneer New Haven congregation met for prayers in a variety of local halls. In 1854, the Mishkan Israel congregation, along with other US congregations, received a $5,000 bequest from the estate of the philanthropist Judah Touro. With this sum it purchased and refurbished a church as its first synagogue. By then the reform segment of the congregation had become the majority and in 1855 the orthodox members seceded permanently and established B'nai Sholom congregation, which continued as a small congregation until it went out of existence in the late 1930s. Only the cemetery of this early German orthodox congregation remains. Today there are about twenty synagogues in Greater New Haven for its orthodox, conservative and reform congregations. The Jewish Historical Society of Greater New Haven and the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven, among others, offer extensive information about the synagogues in the Greater New Haven area. Jewish Life in New Haven TodayToday some 25,000 Jews live in the Greater New Haven area. Within this area, Westville has the largest concentration of Jewish inhabitants. It is the neighborhood where Joseph I. Lieberman, the Democratic Party candidate for vice-president, attends the Westville Synagogue Beth Hamedrash Hagodol “B’nai Israel” A wide spectrum of organizations serves Jewish community life in New Haven today. There is the (Jewish Community Center of Greater New Haven) which "provides quality Jewish programs and services to meet the social, cultural, educational and recreational needs of the entire community"
The Community Center also houses the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven, which offers programs such as the Refugee Resettlement Program for refugees from the former Soviet Union and The Israel Experience Savings Program (TIES) of the Department of Jewish Education, which makes it economically feasible for Jewish teenagers to visit Israel. New Haven has its Jewish Home for the Aged and Jewish Home for Children, Lubavitch Women's Organization and Jewish Care Network. Since its establishment in 1914, the Jewish Home for the Aged has been 'home' to more than 10,000 older adults and their families from the New Haven region and beyond. Currently there are 218 residents and 70 attendees at its Goodwin-Levine Adult Day Health Center.
TheJewish Historical Society of Greater New Haven maintains the archives of the Jewish community of New Haven. ScopeThe Sigel Academy of the neighboring Hartford (CT) and the Yehudah School of Afula, Israel, have piloted a new collaborative educational project developed by Beth Hatefutsoth called Scope: Roots and Me. The project transforms genealogical research into a program for easy use in schools as well as in youth groups and in family education.
Scope contains texts, games, a computer-based genealogical program for building family trees and a complete educator's guide. It provides access to databases in Israel and enables participants around the world to work and learn about one another and about each other's family histories, together. The Scope program will be introduced into schools throughout North America and Israel over the coming two years while a Spanish language version is currently developed by Beth Hatefutsoth. For further details, please visit the web site of the school in Afula featuring their participants. In addition to this virtual contact, the Beth Hatefutsoth premises are visited by participants of missions to Israel organized by New Haven's Jewish community. Senator Joseph I. LiebermanNew Haven is the hometown of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the Democratic Party candidate for vice president. Lieberman, who was born in Stamford, Connecticut, on February 24, 1942, is now in his second term in the United States Senate. Joseph I. Lieberman studied at Yale where he received his bachelor degree in 1964 and his law degree in 1967. He and his wife Hadassah have four children. Lieberman is the author of four books: The Power Broker (1966), The Scorpion and the Tarantula (1970), The Legacy (1981) and Child Support in America (1986). LinksJewish Genealogical Society of Connecticut The Jewish Traveler - New Haven by Elin Schoen Brockman Biography of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman Senator Joseph I. Lieberman - Homepage "A Great Assemblage - An Exhibit of Judaica" at Yale
|
||||||
|
|
