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Boston's lost Jewish neighborhood reunites on Facebook
By adamg on Thu, 11/06/2014 - 8:01am
Jeff Rubin, whose family was one of the last Jewish families to leave the area along Blue Hill Avenue in 1970, reports on a diaspora reunited in a Facebook group:
Jews are famous for their exiles and the Dorchester-Mattapan dispersion is just another example. Thanks to the Facebook page we can experience the lost culture of that neighborhood once again, enjoy the friendships, and find some closure for this formative chapter of our lives.
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Comments
Great idea!
This is an excellent use of social media that had not occurred to me. Thanks for posting.
Outstanding!
I hope they accept my friend request(as an African-American from these neighborhoods).Nonetheless their history is of great interest to many.
Jewish genealogy.
For those researching Jewish genealogy or their own families a strategy to be explored is reviewing the records of neighbors as that neighborhood underwent change. Records of neighbors can be found in places like the Museum of African American History. Families and businesses knew oneanother in those days. Many times folks who weren't relatives knew one another better than members of the same family!
Fun fact : there was a
Fun fact : there was a package store on Blue Hill ave near Morton Street that was the former Blue Hill Credit Union I believe. They used the left behind vault for storage.
It's time...
...to move back! Dorchester and Mattapan needs you! Crime is down, transit is improving, the old temples still stand. All that is missing is the people. We also have a bagel deficit problem that needs solving!
One word as to why that will never happen
"Schools"
I hate to rain on your parade
But the number of shootings in Dorchester reported here on UH paints a much different picture. I served my time on Savin Hill. Not moving back any time soon.
Hate to rain on YOUR parade
...but you're more likely to get shot in the South End than you are on Savin Hill. Guessing that whomever is "doing time" in your old place also has a home that's worth more than yours; I'm sure they're thanking their lucky stars you left too!
Ah yes
Atrack the messenger, but completely ignore The substance of his argument. The simple fact is Dorchester more shootings than any other neighborhood in the city.
Yes prices may have gone up there. But not everybody wants to spend the next 20 years waiting for a neighborhood that may or may not gentrify.
Yeah, but Savin Hill?
Over the bridge is probably one of the safest places in the city.
Even on the west side of the bridge, it might be a bit rough around the edges (like the woman who was stabbed after being lured by his kid's father to a meeting about shoes), but by and large it is a safe place. Safer than the downtowns of Malden and Qunicy I'd say.
But yeah, the largest neighborhood in Boston has more shootings than other neighborhoods.
Actually, I think you've got
Actually, I think you've got that backwards; you've managed to miss the substance of the argument. If you knew anything about Dorchester, you'd know that it's enormous (it's larger than all of downtown Boston) and is not one big neighborhood; There are at least 10-15 distinct communities within its confines. Some of them -- including the Neponset area, Pope's Hill, Savin Hill, Adams Village, Port Norfolk & the Polish Triangle -- are some of the safest neighborhoods in all of Boston (not just Dorchester).
Your statement that, "Dorchester more shootings than any other neighborhood" (fabulous grammar there by the way), is essentially the same as saying "Dorchester is dangerous. Period, end of story." But the situation isn't as black & white as that. Dorchester is a nuanced place; something that the local media doesn't focus on at all. Yes, there are swathes -- including the Blue Hill Ave corridor -- that are still very troubled but there are several neighborhoods that aren't just on the "cusp of gentrification"; they're gentrified (something many of the old-timers being priced out can attest to). Savin Hill is definitely one such place. So before you start whining about "attacking the messenger" perhaps you should get your facts straight.
This.
And not only are there pockets of new gentrification, there are pockets of OLD gentrification--some neighborhoods in Dorchester were always safer, wealthier, more stable, etc. It's very localized. And yes--it's huge, so saying that Savin Hill is dangerous because there have been a ton of shootings on Geneva Ave. is just silly.
Oh no
He's absolutely right, all those suckers routinely plonking down $600K+ on a condo down there must have absolutely no idea what they're getting themselves into. I mean, how can you be wrong when your're FredQuimby from some south shore shithole?
There was a significant
There was a significant population in the North End, there is a jewish cemetery in East Boston, still a great bagle shop and a deli in Chelsea.
The Jules Aarons photos of the West End
show a pretty vibrant Jewish community in the 1940s-50s. And my older family members still recall Egleston Square and Blue Hill Ave as heavily Jewish. I'd love high school kids to learn more about this kind of local history, how neighborhoods change, etc. Maybe too painful or close to home sometimes but it'd be interesting..
A tiny Shabbatlich goy on Salem Street
In 1909, Lewis Hine photographed a little Italian boy going up and down Salem Street offering - for a fee - to light fires on a Saturday morning for Jewish families on the street.
Earlier this year, I actually walked up and down Salem looking for the spot where the photo was taken, to do a then-and-now composite, but couldn't find those steps, which probably means it was taken in front of, what, the only two buildings on that street that have actually been torn down since then?
Very Cool
My grandfather grew up there and many of my family members from a few generations ago also lived on Shirley Ave in Revere.
Have there been any good books written about the exodus away from these areas and why?
Mattapan case study
The Death of an American Jewish Community.
But I'm thinking Jews were no more immune to the siren call of the suburbs than anybody else in the post-war period (as for the North End, well, that is ever the way of the blocks immediately surrounding the docks, at least when those docks were used for transporting people from the Old Country, rather than for mooring luxury yachts).
Or a more interesting explanation
Urban Exodus
No ties to the land, so when the verdant pastures of Newton and Sharon called, why wouldn't you go.
Thank you!!
I was just trying to remember the title of this book. I had no idea about the relative "mobility" of a synagogue as compared to a church. Fascinating.
Supposedly ...
The seats and other supplies from the temples are stored in special buildings at some of the Jewish cemeteries in West Roxbury.
Another book resource
Another book resource: "The Jews of Boston", 2005 edition, published by the Combined Jewish Philanthropies. Photos and essays on the Jewish experience and neighborhoods in Boston.
Thanks, I'll have to check it
Thanks, I'll have to check it out. Though the book "The Death of an American Jewish Community" points out that CJP's newspaper refused to report on the major problems in Mattapan in the late 60s because they didn't want to cause trouble.
which wouldn't be kosher
"In 1909, Lewis Hine photographed a little Italian boy going up and down Salem Street offering - for a fee - to light fires on a Saturday morning for Jewish families on the street."
....which wouldn't be acceptable, because it's a business transaction. Pretty sure that's even worse than lighting the fire yourself.
Also, there is NO EVIDENCE whatsoever The Exodus happened and it's basically been disproved. It's nobody's problem but your own that a compete lie is central to your cultural identity.
Why thank you, anonymous person on the Internet
Who doesn't know anything, really, about Jewish life.
But, hey, loaves into fishes and wine into blood and all that, as long as we're bringing up Biblical stuff. Is your mind blown yet?
What lie exactly?
Jews lived there and then they left.
No one's cultural identity is tied to this.
Why are you so angry?
Hi reddit how are you today?
Hi reddit how are you today?
Exiled?
They were exiled from Mattapan? Is that what we call white flight these days?
Yes it was white flight but
Yes it was white flight but it was a flight instigated by banks and policy encouraged by members of Boston's Vault. Read the books. Death of a Jewish American Commnity and Nat Hentoff's memoir, 'Boston Boy'. Fascinating and controversial to this day within the Boston's Jewish community and among many Bostonians. Now the problem exists that many of the children living in Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan do not know this history of their neighborhood and very little about Jewish culture. We have an arm's length relationship. I hope we can do something about the estrangement that exists between old friends.. I am of the opinion that once again Boston will have a middle and working class Jewish community. Start cooking.
There actually is one
There's a large Orthodox presence in Brighton Center.
Is there? I don't really see
Is there? I don't really see/feel the presence in Brighton Center. Brookline, yes but Brighton?
Yes, there is a community
I have talked to several members of the Orthodox community who were living up the hill from Brighton Center a bit, by Academy Hill Road and William Jackson Ave. I have also met Orthodox Jews who are living along Union Street.
Brighton, in general, also used to be a heavily Jewish (and Russian Jewish, in particular) area and, despite the 20th century exodus, many still remain. The Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly is on Wallingford Street near Comm Ave and has well over a thousand residents, I believe.
Blue Hill Ave. Why the Change
I am an Anthroplogist who as a teenager, young adult witnessed the violence and the Blockbusting. I hate to say it but many secular Jews started to 'play communist' and bring 'Negro rednecks' from the South to live the pluralism crap. The negro saw 'white people w/o guns' and MONEY, ie Cash on their person. My dad was a cop at Station 16 on Morton st. The negroes who came from the South couldnt,wouldnt read or write would actually say," We's can robs, rapes, and kill these Jews because they got no guns!" true story often heard. I remember when two negroes threw acid on the face of the Rabbi on Woodrow Ave. in july 1969. we went looking for them with guns. It didn't have to happen,but know the whole USA is loaded with low IQ's.
An anthropologist?
I've never encountered an anthropologist who expressed himself in quite the way you have here.
The phrase "Negro redneck"
is also a new one for me.
It's fair to say that a
It's fair to say that a number were probably have to have better schools and more space, just like other groups.
So Glad to Find This Group!
I am the product of a mixed marriage between an Jewish girl from Grove Hall and a Jewish guy from Brooklyn. Visited my Grandma on Geneva Ave and my memories of Boston are that of a native. Came to Boston as an Emerson student, lived in a few other places, but Boston is it.
Would any of you folks know a North End Jewish burying ground?
There was a Jewish burying ground in Boston's North End, maybe off Salem St?, maybe the Jewish burying ground was next to a long gone synagogue? In a self published memoir about North End that was on a circulating books shelf of North End Branch Library the author made a remark about this Jewish burying ground in the North End.
What information have any of you kind folks about a Jewish burying ground that was in Boston 's North End?
Jewish Cemetery in the North End?
By the time the Jews arrived, the land was too well developed and thus too valuable for burying people.
The synagogue you reference was Congregation Beth Israel. Their burying ground is on the edge of the city, at the Centre Street Jewish Cemeteries in West Roxbury. So, take the 34 from Forest Hills and get off when you hit Dedham. It gets confusing from there, but ask around and eventually you will get directions to it.
The first Jewish cemetery in Boston....
... was in East Boston:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Ohabei_Shalom_Cemetery
As the article notes, before this (founded in 1844), Jewish people had to be buried in fairly far off locations (like Providence).
I visited this cemetery a couple of years ago-- and it was quite lovely.
Dorchester/Mattapan in the postwar 1940's
In my latest posting on my blog, I have tried to reiterate my experience of early childhood growing up on Favre Street and then Fairmont Street in the postwar 1940's. I've just posted my first feuilleton on this subject and hope to further mine this rich vein of childhood impressions. For example. in addition to the heartless discipline of the maiden ladies who taught us in the public schools, I keep thinking of the many shell shocked veterans of WWII who habitually sat out on the porches of their three deckers or in hammocks in their back yards smoking Lucky Strikes and listening to the Red Sox ball games on their radios. I still wonder what happened to them in the flight to suburbia?