Putting a Name to a Face

by Erin Doane, Curator

On March 9, 1919, the Elmira Jewish Welfare Board hosted a banquet at the Hebrew Social Center on High Street to honor Jewish veterans of World War I. There is a photograph of this event in the archival collection of Congregation Kol Ami. Along with the photograph, CKA has a hand-drawn key to the people in the photograph. While not everyone in the photo is identified, the key provides far more information than we sometimes see with historic images. Too often, photos are left unlabeled and those who remember the people and places within the photos pass away with that knowledge.

There were 104 Jewish soldiers and sailors from Elmira who served in the Great War, six of whom died in service. 35 veterans and their guests, as well as eight women who served in the American Red Cross Canteen Service attended the banquet. Seeing all the men and women gathered to celebrate the end of the war made me wonder if I could find some information about them. So, I turned to the city directories, our archives, and the internet to satisfy my curiosity. I was able to learn a little about the lives of some who attended the banquet nearly 100 years ago.

Nate and Franklin Bimberg

Nate Bimberg served as toastmaster of the event. His son Frank was one of the veterans being honored. Nate was a local businessman, having opened Joseph Bimberg & Son storage at 316 Hathaway Street in 1915. He also served as school commissioner for District No. 1 for 18 years. He was a strong advocate for creating an athletic field at the Elmira Free Academy in 1916.

Franklin Bimberg was 19 years old when he enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1917 as a member of the medical corps. He had worked as office boy at the Star-Gazette before that. After receiving training in Norfolk, Virginia, he was sent overseas where he was stationed in the Mediterranean aboard the Surveyor, a U.S. Destroyer. The Surveyor is credited with capturing the German submarine that sank the Lusitania. Franklin served in the navy until 1921. He enlisted in the army medical corps in 1923, was honorably discharged in 1926, and reenlisted in 1928.

Charles Epstein

Another soldier present that evening was Charles Epstein. He was working as the manager of Jacob Epstein, Estate on East Water Street when the U.S. joined the war. He also volunteered as ward captain of Ward 2 District 3 for a Liberty Loan campaign and was involved in the sale of Liberty Bonds and Thrift Stamps. In August 1918, he was sent to San Antonio, Texas as an Army draftee for training. A month later, he wrote home saying that his time as a boy scout “surely helps a boy in the Army.”

Jacob Epstein, Estate advertisement, Star-Gazette, August 27, 1919

The Siegel Brothers

Star-Gazette, July 11, 1918

Mr. and Mrs. David Siegel had three sons in the military in 1918. Louis and Garris, who were twins, and Sol. Their younger brother Barney was also contemplating joining up at that time, though I never found out if he actually did. The three brothers were all at the celebratory banquet in 1919, but Sol is not among those labeled in the photograph.

Garris (left) and Louis (right) Siegel at the banquet

Just before the war, Garris worked as road representative for the works manager of the American-LaFrance Manufacturing Company. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1918. Louis was a graduate of the University of Buffalo as a pharmacist. He worked at the Spillan Drug Store on Lake and Clinton Streets in Elmira before enlisting in the Naval Reserves.

Henry Radin

In 1917, Henry Radin was among the most eligible bachelors in the city. When the Mozart Theater presented a showing of “Nearly Married,” the management offered free box seats to dozens of men they thought would benefit from the show and Henry was on that list. The young man was also involved in theater himself. He was a “tenor extraordinaire” who performed at Young Men’s Hebrew Association (Y.M.H.A.) minstrel shows. In August 1918 he enlisted in the cavalry.

Julius Berger

Julius Berger was a veteran, just not of World War I. He served in the U.S. army in the Philippines, New Mexico and Arizona years before the Great War. In 1915, he and Henry Radin opened Berger & Radin, a men’s clothing store, at 137 East Water Street. It was the only exclusive men’s hat and haberdashery store in Elmira offering “the nattiest, nobbiest and newest at sane prices.” He and Henry continued to operate the business for years after the war.

Berger & Radin storefront, 137 East Water Street, Elmira

The soldiers and sailors at the banquet were not the only ones who had contributed to the war effort. The ladies of the American Red Cross helped out from home. They raised money for soldier’s families, sold war bonds, collected supplies like bandages and warm socks to send overseas, and operated the Elmira Canteen, located at the railroad station. The Canteen provided soldiers on passing troop trains with food, drink, and basic medical care. After the Red Cross volunteers served dinner at the celebratory banquet, those present offered their thanks to the “canteen girls.”

Edith Fidelman

Edith Fidelman graduated as an honor student from Elmira Free Academy in 1916. Over the next few years, her name appeared frequently in the social column as she attended parties and traveled. In 1918, she joined the Red Cross and became involved in the Liberty Loan Committee of the Y.W.H.A. In 1919, she was appointed as an election inspector by the Republican party for the first district in the city’s fourth ward.

Beatrice Spiegel Perling

Beatrice Spiegel was a 1914 graduate of Elmira College. She went on to get her Master of Philosophy degree from Wisconsin University a year later. She became involved in the war effort in 1917 when she enrolled in the Red Cross. She also took the State Civil Service exam and was appointed as bookkeeper at the State Women’s Relief Corps Home. Just over a month after attending the Elmira Jewish Welfare Board banquet, she married Joseph Perling of New York City. She continued serving the community in Elmira through the Second World War.

Light One Candle

by Rachel Dworkin, archivist

             Today is the first day of Chanukah.  We Jews like to joke that all of our holidays are about survival in the face of religious oppression and food, and Chanukah is no exception.   The holiday commemorates the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 165 BC following years of religious oppression by Syrian invaders.  After the temple was looted and the Jewish religion outlawed, a group of religious insurgents lead by the Maccabee family fought a bloody two-year war to drive the Syrians out.  As part of re-consecrating the temple, the Maccabees light the Eternal Light but only had enough holy oil to keep it burning one day.  By some miracle it lasted the full eight days until more oil could be made. 

 

Book of Chanukah prayers published by Temple B'Nai Israel, ca. 1990s

Prayer for lighting the candles from Temple B'Nai Israel prayer book

            While the traditions associated with the holiday vary based on denomination and nationality, all Jews celebrate by saying certain prayers and lighting and displaying candles in a special holder called a menorah for each night of the 8-night celebration.   Some families also exchange gifts.  Eating foods fried in oil is also an important aspect.  Potato pancakes called latkes are my personal favorite (and specialty) but jelly-filled donuts called sufganiyot are also popular.  Hungarian Jews also make fried cheese pancakes and Spanish Jews make sweet fritters.  The whole holiday is basically a heart attack waiting to happen.

 

My menorah.  They are supposed to be placed by your front door or a window facing the street to draw attention to the miracle and holiday.

            Jews usually play gambling game using a 4-sided top called a dreidel.  The dreidel is inscribed with 4 Hebrew letters (Nun, Gimel, Hey & Shin) which form an acronym for the Hebrew phrase Nes Gadol Haya Sham ("A great miracle happened there").   Each player starts with an equal amount of something, usually chocolate coins called gelt, plus a pot in the middle.  Each person takes a turn spinning the dreidel.  If it lands on a Shin, they add to the pot; on a Hey, they take half the pot; on a Gimel, they take the whole pot; and on a Nun, they get nothing. 

 

Gelt and dreidel.  It has landed on a Gimel so I win the pot.

         
   In North America, Chanukah has become a major holiday, mostly to provide Jews with a source of pride at a difficult time.  I know as a child I was often bullied by Christian students who would say I wasn’t getting presents because Santa knew I was bad and that my religion was stupid.  By honoring the Maccabees fight, we could celebrate the strength of our own faith and rest assured with the knowledge that our food was way better. 

            Except for the prayer books, all of the images in this post are of items in my own personal collection.  Sadly, while the museum has an excellent paper collection associated with Chemung County’s Jewish community, it has no objects.  To all my fellow Jews out there, please consider donating some Judaica to the museum this holiday.  It would be a mitzvah. 

Jewish History

by Rachel Dworkin, Archivist

The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah is just wrapping up.  Like many Jewish holidays, Hanukkah celebrates perseverance in the face of religious oppression.  Similarly, the early Jewish settlement in the Chemung Valley is a story of survival and growth in the face of oppression.   The first Jews arrived in the area following a failed revolution in the German states in 1848.  The revolution was an attempt on the part of the merchant middle class and the poorer working classes to unite the various German-speaking states into one democratic county.   It was put down by the aristocratic powers and was followed by an anti-Semitic backlash.

Most of the Jews who fled to America arrived in New York and Philadelphia and spread out from there.  By the early 1850s, the Erie Railroad had connected Elmira with New York and so the Jews came.  The earliest settlers worked as peddlers.  Some of them, especially those with families, established homes in Elmira and from there traveled by foot to outlying villages and settlements selling jewelry and other fancy goods not available in general stores.  After they’d gained enough money, many would settle down with a shop in a favorite village or return to Elmira to open up a store.  Rosenbaum’s, for example, was opened in 1863 by former peddler Leham Rosenbaum. 

By the 1860s, after years of worship in private homes, the Jewish community pulled together enough funds to build a synagogue.  It was called B’Nai Israel and was located on High Street on Elmira’s eastside in the heart of the Jewish community.  Initially, there were only 31 families in the congregation, but it grew steadily throughout the 1860s & 70s.  

A second wave of Jewish settlers arrived in the 1880s and 90s, this time from Poland and Russia.  Throughout the 1880s, Eastern European Jews were plagued both by violent mob attacks and increasingly harsh anti-Semitic laws which restricted where they could live, what jobs they could have and how much education they could receive.  Between 1881 and 1920, over 2 million Jews fled Russia and Poland for the United States. 

While the members of this second wave who settled in Elmira moved into the same eastside neighborhood as the more established Jewish families, they didn’t blend seamlessly.  The members of B’Nai Israel practiced Reform Judaism while the newer immigrants were Orthodox.  This lead to the founding of a new Orthodox temple called Shomray Hadath in 1883.  By the next year there was a third temple known as the Sullivan Street Synagogue and Talmud Torah which eventually merged with Shomray Hadath after a fire destroyed their building in 1941.

Beginning in the 1930s, the Jewish community began to move west out of the old eastside neighborhood centered around John Street.  First B’Nail Israel in 1952 and then later Shomray Hadath moved out to West Water Street.  Due to dwindling populations, the two congregations have recently merged to form Kol Ami.