- On Middle Ground: A History of the Jews of Baltimore by Eric L. Goldstein and Deborah R. Weiner
Eric Goldstein and Deborah Weiner state the theme of their Baltimore Jewish history in the title: On Middle Ground. That Jews are an in-between people—racially, socially, economically—is commonly claimed, but for Baltimore Jewry that status resonates. "Baltimore," Goldstein and Weiner observe, "is the only metropolis in the United States that is both a border city and a major port connecting the nation's interior to the world" (2). It resembled northern industrial metropolises while serving as the "commercial gateway to the South" (2).
Local and subregional Jewish histories often claim uniqueness for their communities but then recount familiar American narratives. At the 2018 Biennial Scholars' Conference on American Jewish History, David Myers emphasized the historian's task to seek the exceptional—not a morally superior exceptionalism—by identifying local particulars. Upon such differences, placed in comparative context, larger assessments can be built. The authors recognize that Baltimore's history is "in many respects … the story of American Jews in microcosm," but their contribution is to show where it "collided" with commonplace "trends" (2).
Baltimore lacked a colonial heritage, and Jews were not present at its creation. Early settlers, notably merchants Jacob Cohen and Solomon Etting, entered civil society by fighting for an emancipating Jew Bill, which passed in 1826. Community origins trace to 1829 with the founding of the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, followed by a benevolence society in 1846. Jewish social, literary, and cultural societies formed consonant with national trends.
The authors follow current historiography in deconstructing the "German" wave. Traditionalist Dorfjuden identified with their native states or regions, and wavelets brought Dutch, English, Polish, and Bohemian Jews. By 1875, the city held three Eastern European synagogues. Similarly, the authors downplay movement labels when recounting congregational histories. Har Sinai, America's first enduring [End Page 380] Reform congregation, cleaved to tradition. The prayer books of radical Reform rabbi David Einhorn and proto-Conservative rabbi Benjamin Szold invite comparison as well as contrast. Congregational histories often tell more about changing neighborhoods and demography than ideology. Synagogue traditionalism, like local church culture, also reflects the Southern "socially conservative climate" (4).
Eastern European immigration transformed Baltimore no less than other cities. After a decline, the city rebounded from 1910 to 1940 with industrial growth and expanding borders. Jewish numbers rose to 65,000 by 1924. Though a port, Baltimore was a "transit center" rather than a destination (111). Lithuanian-born Jacob Epstein's Baltimore Bargain House dispersed peddlers and shopkeepers throughout the region. As was typical, established Jews had tenuous relations with newcomers. German Jewish manufacturers of ready-made clothing employed immigrant Jews, but cheap black labor limited the growth of a Jewish proletariat.
In the early 1900s, Baltimore was "the only American city with sizable populations of both Jews and African Americans" (3). Embracing the southern racial ethos, senator Isidor Reyner supported black disfranchisement while immigrant masses opposed it. Residential segregation created "social separation from non-Jews" that reinforced a "distinct Jewish identity," as seen in Barry Levinson's films (11). Housing restrictions persisted, including by Jewish developers. Racial conflict focused on white flight and practices at Jewish-owned stores. While activist Jews and communal organizations resisted segregation, Jewish real estate interests profited from redlining, blockbusting, and restricted housing. As in northern industrial cities, "ethnic-based machine politics" governed (233). The Democratic boss was ex-boxer and bootlegger Jack Pollack, who nurtured his fellow Jews and supported progressive legislation while keeping blacks powerless and segregated. Baltimorean Marvin Mandel broke with Pollack and rose to the office of governor.
Economic history follows national trends. The family store remained the foundation of Jewish enterprise. Eastern European Jews, rising in class, abandoned city row houses and followed Central Europeans to the northwestern suburbs, where eighty percent of local Jews settled. Suburbanization was not a dispersal. Even as Jews rose into the professions, especially law and medicine, they maintained Jewish neighborhoods in Owing...