This article appeared in the May 20, 2005 Jewish Advocate.

Judaism blooms in the Evergreen Garden City

By Susie Davidson

Advocate Correspondent

On the bottom floor of Hebrew SeniorLife’s Hebrew Rehabilitation Center in Roslindale, murals depict a community many residents once called home. Scenes of Blue Hill Avenue, which include the Martin Theatre, the G&G Deli, the Prime Kosher Market, Blue Hill Credit Union, and Waldman Candies, recall the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. The Blue Hill Avenue Memory Board and Web sites also keep their memories alive.

At the Newton History Museum, the Newton Historical Society’s library and materials present another panorama of pioneering settlers and abolitionist leaders at the Jackson Homestead, a former Underground Railroad stop at 527 Washington St. In this welcoming and diverse community, many Jews found their post-Mattapan homes.

Settled as a part of Watertown in 1630, Newton became known as Cambridge Village in 1688, was renamed Newtown in 1691 and Newton in 1766. It became a city in 1873. The 2000 census lists its population at 83,829. In 2003, FBI crime statistics helped deem Newton the nation’s safest city.

Its 12 villages and neighborhoods have distinct characters and histories. Stagecoaches, followed in 1834 by the railroad, and mills and factories aided the development of Newton Corner and Nonantum. A sawmill created in 1688 on the Charles River helped establish Newton Upper Falls. A gristmill and two major roadways further down the river spurred other mills and the first post office (1813) in Newton Lower Falls. Though a 1712 town hall meeting house at Centre and Homer streets was moved to “West Newton Square” in 1849, Newton Centre remains the heart of town. In 1834, the Boston and Worcester Railroad and the 1844 commuter rail helped establish Newtonville and Auburndale. In 1821, Joseph Lee bequested 165 acres he had bought from the Hammond family. Roadwork in 1850 and the Charles River Railroad in 1852 made the area accessible. His hiers named it Chestnut Hill. Newton Highlands, and to the south, Oak Hill, which was largely wet-meadowland that was later drained, evolved around an 1852 Charles River Railroad extension. Westward extensions of Beacon Street in 1855 and the Boston and Albany Railroad in 1886 fueled the growth of Waban, named for the old village of Waban and the Praying Indian.

Like most areas Jews have historically migrated to, Newton was a destination preceded by others. At the turn of the century, Jews mixed with Italians in Boston’s North End. By 1910, according to Gerald Gamm, who authored “Urban Exodus: Why the Jews Left Boston and the Catholics Stayed” (Harvard University Press), there were 80,000 Jews in Boston and seven Yiddish newspapers. (This newspaper had been founded in 1905 as well.) But the 1920s found the Jewish population out of the North End and into the triple-deckers of Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan. For 50 years, Blue Hill Avenue was the focal point of Jewish Boston.

In the late 1940s, the Jewish population was moving from the West and North Ends, East Boston and Chelsea to Roxbury, Dorchester, Brookline and Newton, and in the 1960s, to the suburbs, due to the infamous low-interest loan program targeted to African-Americans.

The turbulence of late 1960s-early 1970s Mattapan definitively ended that Jewish era. Jews left behind and donated their community centers, grand buildings and store facades, now filled with empty memories of the the vibrant community centered around Blue Hill Avenue, the likes of which has never been replaced in the Boston area.

A CJP demographic survey documents the Jewish population in 1965 at 176,000, 208,000 including North Shore and western suburbs. Younger Jews were in south suburbs, Brookline and Brighton, Newton and Wellesley, Framingham and Natick. The 1975 study revealed only 195,000 Jews in the overall geographic area, 165,000 in CJP communities. The CJP began building facilities in the western suburbs, a decision that was not without controversy. In 1979, a Jewish Community Campus site was purchased in Newton, and in 1983, CJP's Gosman Campus and Leventhal-Sidman Jewish Community Center opened there.

Congregation Agudas Achim Anshei Sfard (the Adams Street Shul), was founded in Nonantum as the first synagogue in Newton by American Jewish immigrants in 1911. Its orthodox congregation continues to welcome all to 168 Adams St., a registered historic site. Today, it is the third oldest synagogue in New England.

According to Shul records, Jews fleeing Eastern European pogroms arrived in Nonantum in the late 1800s in the first wave of immigration. Jews from Russia, the Ukraine and the former Austro-Hungarian Empire fled to New York and New England. (The pogrom era itself succeeded a perilous time for Jews in Tzarist Russia, who were relegated to “The Pale of Settlement,” mainly now Ukraine.)

Newly-introduced commuter trains and electric streetcars made for a quick five-mile journey from Boston to Newton. In 1646, the General Court chose the name Nonantum, which means “rejoicing,” for “the village for the Praying Indians,” established by the Reverend John Eliot in 1646. The neighborhood was called North Village until The Nonantum Worsted Company set up in 1880.

Joining its Irish, French Canadian and Italian immigrants were Jews, many of whom had lived elsewhere in New England, and knew or were related to one another. Many became “junkers,” self-employed peddlers who took the Sabbath off. The trolley line to the then-Jewish North End also allowed them to get kosher groceries. Nonantum had become Newton’s most densely populated area by 1895, and by 1901, half of Newton’s Jewish families lived there. The peddlers eventual retail operations enjoyed a warm relationship with the community. Swartz’ Hardware store, run by the same family, and Fox’s Pharmacy are still in operation.

The all-volunteer shul opened for Chanukah of 1912, but its mortgage was not paid off until after World War II. Its largest initial benefactors were New York millionaire Jacob Shiff and two local non-Jews, the doctor and the mayor. The hall they had occasionally rented is today the Nonantum Boys’ Club, which donated its 48-star flag to the Shul in the 1990s.

Other Newton synagogues are listed below.

“My Jewish Newton experience was rather overwhelming,” says Rosian Zerner, who is the Vice-President of the World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors of the Holocaust and runs a German-Jewish dialogue group. “Not in the religious sense, but in the ethnic and family sense.” When her family arrived in America, they came to Newton because her mother's uncle had come over in the mid-late 19th century. His five children also had many children. “So we came from no family at all (over 40 family members were murdered during the Holocaust) to this huge enclave of Harvard/Radcliffe Jewish Brahmins who had done the typical Chelsea, Dorchester, Newton upward mobile route.” Every day was a birthday, an anniversary, or some other event. “Friends were called ‘the kibbutz,’ and it was truly a warm and loving community,” she says. The extended group was largely secular and blended well with the Newton community, though Zerner notes a newer trend toward Jewish observance.

“I see Jews seeking each other out for community, for validation, for finding religious and other roots. Passover is now the holiday with most meaning for me because so many of freedoms that were taken for granted are endangered again.”

Jamie Stolper is President of ShalomBoston.com and a third generation Newton resident comfortably ensconsed in the city. “My grandparents were among the original members of Temple Emanuel in Newton, our family has been associated with the Adams Street Shul, and my mother was the first graduate of the Hornstein Program at Brandeis,” she says. She attended Temple Emanuel’s Hebrew school and Prozdor Community High School. She holds a bachelor’s from M.I.T., a master’s from its Sloan School of Management, and a Bachelor’s of Hebrew Literature from Hebrew College, where she was the valedictorian. She studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem for a year, has taught at Temple Israel in Boston and at Prozdor. She settled in Newton, where she and her husband, also a third-generation from a family active at Temple Reyim, are raising three boys, one of whom attended Solomon Schechter Day School. Her own Newton-based enterprise, ShalomBoston.com, is a primary resource for the Jewish community. Cited by The Jewish Agency for Israel as one of the best Jewish web sites worldwide, it offers a calendar of ongoing events, searchable directories for synagogues and organizations, information life cycle and ritual needs, food, products and services geared to all.

Kosher establishments in Newton include the Bodavi Bakery on 551 Comm. Ave. (617-332-2008, Gordon and Alperin Meat at 552 Comm. Ave., 617-332-4170, Rosenfeld's Bagels at 1280 Centre St. (617-527-8080), Sweetberry Cafe and Catering at 333 Nahanton St. (617-558-6475) and Wald's Catering at 160 Stanton Ave. (617-965-1117). Kosher bakeries can also be found at Stop and Shop and some Whole Foods Market locations. Cordially Yours Invitations and Calligraphy (617-969-6048) specializes in Hebrew printing.

Israeli Folk Dancing meets at Temple Emanuel in Newton Centre on Sundays from 7:30-10 p.m. (Pam and Joan, 617-484-3267; jeh@netzero.net) and at Congregation Beth El on Tuesdays from 7:30-10 p.m. (women only; Pam, 617-254-4362).

Four Seasons Kosher operates a bed and breakfast at 15 Madoc St. (617-928-1128).

Synagogues in Newton:

Chabad Chestnut Hill, 163 Bellingham Rd., 617-323-2000

Chabad Newton Centre, 49 Chase St., 617-965-1968

Congregation Agudas Achim Anshei Sfard (Adams Street Synagogue), 168 Adams St., 617-630-0226
Congregation Beth El Atereth Israel, 561 Ward St., 617-244-7233

Congregation Shaarei Tefillah, 35 Morseland Rd., 617-527-7637

The Sephardic Congregation of Newton, 561 Ward St., 617-244-9643

Mishkan Tefila, 300 Hammond Pond Pkwy., 617-332-7770

Temple Beth Avodah, 45 Puddingstone Lane, 617-527-0045

Temple Emanuel, 385 Ward St., 617-558-8100

Temple Reyim, 1860 Washington St., 617-527-2410

Temple Shalom, 175 Temple St., 617-332-9550

Congregation Bnai Jacob, Zvhiller Beis Medrash, 955 Beacon St., 617-227-8200

Four Newton chavurat:

Dorshei Tzedek, 617-965-0330, dtzedek@gis.net

Newton Centre Minyan, 617-527-2949

Progressive Chavurah, 617-484-8466, Karen Schwartz, chavurah@kosher.com

Shir Hadash, 617-965-6862

Schools:

Beis Yaacov Girls High School, 561 Ward St., 617-965-2548

Gan Yeladim, 125 Wells Ave., 617-965-1370

Hebrew College/Prozdor, 160 Herrick Rd., 617-559-8600

Jewish Community Day School, 25 Lenglen Rd., 617-965-5100

Solomon Schecter Day School, K-3, 60 Stein Circle, 617-964-7765

Solomon Schecter Day School, 4-8, 125 Wells Ave., 617-928-9100

Organizations

Aleinu Jewish Gay Advocacy, 2150 Washington St., 617-527-2830; 617-964 8191; tisrael@shore.net.

American Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, 617-969-8534.

American Committee for the Weizmann Institute, 1320 Centre St., 617-965 2159; 800-242-2947

American Jewish Historical Society, 160 Herrick Rd., Newton Centre, 617-559-8881

American Society for the Technion, One Gateway Center, 617-964-0048

Brezniak-Rodman Levine-Briss Funeral Directors (617-969-0800)

Bureau of Jewish Education, 333 Nahanton St., 617-965-7350

Coed Jewish Sports, P.O. Box 610-372, Newton, 781-453-9599

German-Jewish Dialogue Group, meets monthly in a church in Newton Centre, 617-244-1029

Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent and Significant Others, 333 Nahanton St., 617-527-1888

Jewish Big Brother/Big Sister, 333 Nahanton St., 617-965 7055

Jewish Chamber Orchestra, 617-232-5035

Jewish Cemetery Association of Massachusetts, 1320 Centre St., #306, Newton, 617-244-6509, jfcsbost@aol.com; 1340 Centre St., 617-965-1123

Jewish Family and Life, 90 Oak St., 617-965-7772

Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston, Box 610366, Newton, 617-283-8003

Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1320 Centre St., 617-965-1490

Leventhal-Sidman Jewish Community Center, 333 Nahanton St., 617-965-7410

Massachusetts Board of Rabbis, 1320 Centre St., 617-244-6506; 617-964-7055 (fax); info@synagoguecouncil.org;

National Jewish Council for the Disabled, 617-457-8789

New Israel Fund, 850 Boylston St., 617-734-2771

Parents of Adult Jewish Singles, 103 Beethoven Ave., 617-332-4482

Project Ezra, 1320 Centre St., 617-244-6506

Synagogue Council of Massachusetts, 1320 Centre St., 617-244-6506; 617-964-7055 (fax); info@synagoguecouncil.org;

United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, 1320 Centre St., 617-964-8210