Harlem’s Hebrew Heritage
The Harlem Renaissance. The Apollo Theater. Black culture. Gentrification.
For most people, these are the things that come to mind when they think about Harlem. But how about a thriving Jewish community?
On Sunday afternoon, about two dozen people — including two Riverdale residents — gathered for a walking tour organized by the Municipal Arts Society of New York to learn about the Jewish history of Harlem.
Tour guide Marty Shore, a bespectacled gray-haired man who wore a bright red backpack and an even brighter red coat, began by briefly recounting Harlem’s history from the second half of the 19th century through the early 1900s.
Like most areas north of Manhattan, Harlem was a farming community in the 1860s. Two decades later, it experienced a housing boom after the 2nd and 3rd Avenue elevated train stations were built. In 1895, the first Jews began to migrate there from Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
Within the next 15 years, Harlem became the third largest Jewish community in the world, after Krakow (or Warsaw, depending on which historian you ask), Poland and the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Mr. Shore said.
In subsequent decades, Jews moved out and other ethnic groups, most prominently African-Americans, moved in.
Today, little remains of Harlem’s vibrant Jewish community but hidden jewels of Jewish culture still exist and Mr. Shore was eager to point them out.
One of the first stops on the tour was Mount Olivet Baptist Church, formerly Temple Israel of New York, which is now located at 112 E. 75th St. Stars of David still remain on the building and, if one looks hard enough, can also be seen through the dirty plexiglass that covers the church’s stained glass windows. Though the tour did not enter the church, Mr. Shore informed the crowd that Hebrew writings remain on the sacristy walls and that there is still a women’s balcony that was once used in Jewish services.
Other churches that were once Jewish places of worship include the Ebenezer Gospel Tabernacle, formerly Congregation Chebra Ukadisha B’nai Mikalwarie, a Jewish congregation from Poland; Mount Neboh Baptist Church, formerly Temple Ansche Chesed, which moved to the Upper West Side in 1927; and Salvation Deliverance Church, formerly Institutional Synagogue, which became known as the “shul with the pool,” because it offered a school and community center complete with a gymnasium and pool on the premises.
“One of my favorite places to give tours is in Harlem,” said Mr. Shore, a former New York City public school teacher, who has been a certified tour guide since 2000. “I like dispelling the myths of Harlem and bringing people to a place they’d probably never go on their own.”
Passing rows upon rows of brownstones, some newly renovated, some burnt out and abandoned, the tour ventured to 120th Street.There, Mr. Shore called attention to the childhood home of Richard Rodgers, of the famous duo Rodgers and Hammerstein, writers of such beloved Broadway musicals as The Sound of Music, Oklahoma! and The King and I. On the same block lived other Jews of notoriety, including Gertrude Edelstein, the actress and writer of the radio and television show The Goldbergs, Cantor Yossele Rosenblatt, regarded as the greatest cantor of his time who sang at the nearby Congregation Ohab Zedek (now located on the Upper West Side) and Lena Himmelstein, a clothing designer who founded Lane Bryant.
A final noteworthy stop on the tour was the former synagogue of the Commandment Keepers: Holy Church of the Living God, a practicing sect of black Jews. Founded in 1919 by Nigerian Rabbi Wentworth Arthur Matthew, the congregation believes that the lost tribe of Israel has its roots in Ethiopia. The building at 1 W. 123rd St. functioned as their place of worship starting in 1962 but is now padlocked due to a pending court case over who owns the deed. Inscribed Stars of David, a Torah scroll and Hebrew lettering are still visible on the building.
“Our tour guide was extremely knowledgeable and full of wonderful information,” said Susan Birnbaum, who leads tours herself and has lived in Riverdale for 40 years. She attended with Susan Gordon, a former New York City public school teacher and member of the Riverdale community for 26 years.
“The history of New York is fascinating. This is all a part of the evolving nature of the City,” Ms. Gordon said.
The Municipal Art Society of New York runs weekly and specialty tours. For a full list, go to www.mas.org/tours.
Clockwise from center: the now-shuttered former synagogue of the Commandment Keepers: Holy Church of the Living God; glipses of the past on what is now the Mount Olivet Baptist Church; the home of Cantor Yossele Rosenblatt; guide Marty Shore; a tour participant takes in the sights.