The Enduring Community: The Jews of Newark and Metrowest (review)

Many immigrant Jews leaving Ellis Island for life in America took the ferry not to Manhattan, but to Jersey City, New Jersey and the Central New Jersey Railroad Station. While most headed for points west, many settled in Newark, joining the Irish, Italians and other immigrant groups who would make Newark "the Workshop of the Nation." William Helmreich's richly textured study of the Jewish community of Newark allows readers to see, hear, and, at times, even smell the factories, schools, synagogues, department stores, and foods that were the essence of Newark. A social history of Jewish Newark from its beginnings, through its fabled golden age, to its dissolution and renewal in the city's surrounding suburbs, Helmreich's book provides a detailed and complex analysis of a Jewish community which is simultaneously unique and emblematic of Jewish life in major cities of the United States.

A City University of New York professor of Judaic studies and sociology, Helmreich writes that, by 1948, Newark's Jewish population was seventh largest in the United States. This "remarkably cohesive" community initially centered around Newark's Third Ward (p. 248). Helmreich examines the professional, cultural, social, and religious life of Jews in Newark, but the story in each chapter is the same: "as soon as they had saved up enough money, they moved on" (p. 23). But before that movement took Jews to suburbs, such as Irvington, Millburn, Short Hills and Morristown, and before the Newark riots of 1967 harshly ended the remaining Jewish presence in the city, Jews had transformed each store and street they occupied. Also, through institution-building and the philanthropic work which earlier German Jews such as Louis Bamberger and his sister Caroline Bamberger Fuld initiated, Jewish Newark built 150 synagogues; Beth Israel, a nationally recognized hospital; the Bamberger department stores; the YM-YWHA on High Street; and many day schools and cultural institutions. "If the true benchmark of a city's culture is to be measured by its main library and major museum, Newark would be in the first rank," Helmreich notes (p. 144).

Each of the book's seven chapters takes a general subject, such as history, social life and culture, or community service organizations, and follows it from earliest days to the present. While Newark today is regarded as a classic example of urban blight, Helmreich recaptures its vigorous past and the climate of opportunity it offered its Jewish residents. Also, events such as the Holocaust, World War II, and the creation of the State of Israel produced a generous response from a network of Newark assistance agencies. Refugees were "resettled, placed in Americanization and citizenship classes, and given help in securing employment by the Jewish Vocational Service" (p. 216). And the Jews of Newark and its suburbs learned to fight antisemitism openly, no longer poor immigrants without a voice.

While Helmreich mentions the many famous Jews who came from Newark, such as composer Jerome Kern and author Philip Roth, his focus is on the daily life of ordinary immigrant Jews. For them, dirty, crowded living arrangements without adequate bathing facilities mimicked the working conditions they left home for each day. But Jewish Newark generously nurtured its own before they moved on and before success made "psychological and spiritual needs" replace daily wants (p. 300).

While this is an authoritative book, Helmreich falters in his choice of photographs. Shots of sterile buildings with few, if any, people around them and formal portraits of rabbis and business leaders contrast markedly with Helmreich's textual portrayal of the noisy, accomplished, progressive culture that was Jewish Newark. Despite this minor shortcoming, the author succeeds in appealing to both the scholar and the general reader, a difficult feat for many academics.

As Helmreich notes, the current suburban sprawl of Jewish life, after Newark's cohesiveness, challenges those who wish to maintain community. Newark'...