Few Jews arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, in its early years. As an immigrant port of entry and border town between North and South and as a manufacturing center in its own right, Baltimore has been well-positioned to reflect developments in American Jewish life. Yet, the Jewish community of Baltimore has maintained its own distinctive character as well.
Earliest Jews in Baltimore
The 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia states:
In 1781 Jacob Hart, father-in-law of Haym Salomon, headed a subscription of £2,000 ($10,000) loaned to Lafayette for the relief of the detachment under his command.Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography: Archives of the congregations; files of the Occident and of the local newspapers; personal reminiscences of older members of the Jewish community; Publications of the American-Jewish Historical Society, No. 1, pp. 21, 22; No. 2, pp. 65, 66; No, 4, pp. 94–96.
Jewish cemetery in 1786
The existence of a Jewish cemetery in 1786 indicates a Jewish community of some size. How long previous to that year the cemetery had been established is not known. The earliest mention of it occurs in a document (which was in the possession of Mr. Mendes Cohen of Baltimore), dated July 12, 1786, headed "Mr. Carroll's [i.e. Charles Carroll of Carrollton's] claims". It is a "list of the names of the Persons who occupy the ground (supposed to be about 2 acres) on the east side of Jones's Falls, . . . with an account of the improvements". One of the items is "The Jews burying-ground, 1 small lot enclosed", situated in Ensor's Town, near East Monument street. A deed dated Dec. 26, 1801, conveys this same burying-ground from Charles Carroll to Levi Solomon and Solomon Etting, for a consideration of five shillings; and another, dated Dec. 29, 1801, for a consideration of $80, conveys it to the same parties from Wm. McMechen and John Leggett. Interment has been made in it as late as 1832, the same year in which the oldest Jewish cemetery now in use was established. No indications can be discovered of the removal of remains buried in it when the cemetery was abandoned.
According to the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia:
The Etting family
With the advent of the Etting family, the history of the Jewish community in Baltimore becomes better documented. It is uncertain when the Etting brothers, Reuben and Solomon, together with Levi Solomon, their uncle, came to Baltimore from York, Pa. On Jan. 4, 1796, Solomon Etting's name appears in the "Advertiser" as one of five persons authorized "to receive proposals in writing for a house or suitable lot" for a bank to be established in Baltimore Town. But there are indirect indications that the family settled in Baltimore before 1787. In the list of stockholders of the same bank, published at the end of 1796, appear the following names: Solomon, Kitty, Reuben, Shinah, and Hetty Etting; Jacob F., Philadelphia, Benjamin, and Hetty Levy; and Levy and Myer Solomon. In the first directory of "Baltimore Town and Fell's Point", also published in 1796 – the year of the incorporation of Baltimore as a city – there are, in addition to the above, two Harts, three Jacobs, Philip Itzchkin, – Kahn, Benjamin Lyon, Solomon Raphael, and Isaac Solomon; and in the lists of letters remaining at the post-office occur the names of Hhym Levenstene and Benjamin Myers. Accordingly, the Jewish Encyclopedia estimates the Jewish population of Baltimore in 1796 at fifteen families.
Jews elected to City Council
In 1798, the Collmus family arrived from Bohemia; and in 1808 the six sons of Israel J. Cohen came, with their mother, from Richmond, Va. The Cohens and the Ettings played a prominent part in the history of Baltimore Jewry, and in that of the city also. Both families acquired an enviable reputation for integrity and business tact; and their members were honored with offices of trust, by corporations and in the city government. Their names figure most prominently in the emancipation struggle of 1818–26, during which time the "Jew Bill" was debated in the legislature of Maryland. This bill proposed "to consider the justice and expediency of extending to those persons professing the Jewish religion the same privileges that are enjoyed by Christians". Immediately upon its passage, and its ratification in the legislative session of 1825–26, it was applied practically in the election of Solomon Etting and Jacob I. Cohen, JR., to seats in the city council of Baltimore.
In more recent times, the 5th District has been represented by two Jews, first by Rochelle "Rikki" Spector from 1977 to 2016, and then by Isaac "Yitzy" Schleifer since 2016, who is the second openly Orthodox Jew to hold office in Baltimore City.
Organization of Religious worship
After 1826, the recorded history of the Jews of Baltimore ceases to be the history of prominent individuals, and becomes that of a community. Almost coincidentally with the removal of civil disabilities occurs the first of a series of regular meetings for religious services, whose continuity has been uninterrupted. According to the recollections of one participant, this meeting took place in Holliday street, near Pleasant street, at the house of Zalma Rehiné, a former resident of Richmond, Va., and an uncle of Isaac Leeser. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, this may possibly have been the beginning of the congregation Nidche Israel, later known as the "Baltimore Hebrew Congregation," or as the "Stadt-Schul", probably because almost simultaneously with its origin another settlement of Jews, at Fell's Point – an outlying and at first separate district – began to crystallize into a congregation, called the "Fell's Point Hebrew Friendship Congregation", and regularly organized since 1838. The Nidche Israel soon found it necessary to rent rooms on North Exeter street, near what is now Lexington street. Thence the congregation moved to a one-story dwelling off High street, near the bend between Fayette and Gay streets, or near what is now Lexington street, the entrance being through a narrow alley. In 1837 a three-story brick building was bought, at the southwest corner of Harrison street and Ætna lane. In 1845 the congregation removed to Lloyd and Watson streets, the new synagogue being dedicated by the Rev. S. M. Isaacs of New York and the Rev. Isaac Leeser of Philadelphia, together with the ministers of the congregation, A. Rice and A. Ansell (Anshel). Here it worshiped until April 6, 1889, when a new building was erected on Madison avenue and Robert street. The date of the congregational charter is Jan. 29, 1830 (supplementary act, 1851). The incorporators were Moses Millem (Mulheim), Joseph Osterman, John M. Dyer, Louis Silver, and Levi Benjamin.
The first rabbi of the congregation was the above-mentioned Abraham Rice (Reiss), whose piety and character have left a lasting impress upon the community, especially through his influence upon the youths he taught, some of them later becoming its leaders. Rice established a school for instruction in Hebrew in 1845, and he officiated as the rabbi of the congregation from 1840 to 1849, and again from the spring of 1862 to Oct. 29 of the same year, the date of his death. Other rabbis of the congregation have been: Julius Spiro, in conjunction with Mr. Rice (1846–47); Henry Hochheimer (1849–59); B. Illoway (1859–61); Abraham Hofman (1868–73); Maurice Fluegel (1881–84); A. S. Bettelheim (1886–90); and Adolf Guttmacher (1891). The burial-ground belonging to the congregation was bought in 1832, at which time it covered three acres.
Rabbis of the Fell's Point Congregation, later worshiping on Eden street, have been: Aaron Günzburg (1848–56); Henry Hochheimer (1859–92); W. Willner (1892–94); Clifton H. Levy (1894–96): and M. Rosenstein (1896). This congregation, as well as the one or two chebrot of which records up to 1842 have been preserved, had separated from, or organized themselves independently of, the mother congregation, Nidche Israel, only for reasons of convenience, on account of the extended space over which the community was scattered.
In 1842 the desire for a radical change in the liturgy resulted in the formation of the Har Sinai Verein, whose rabbis have been: Max Sutro (about 1842); Moritz Brown (about 1849–55); David Einhorn (1855–61); S. Deutsch (1862–73); Jacob Mayer (1874–76); Emil G. Hirsch (1877–78); S. Sale (1878–83); David Philipson (1884–88); Tobias Shanfarber (1888–98); and Charles A. Rubenstein (1898). The congregation later erected a new house of worship on Bolton and Wilson streets. In 1873, a new charter was granted and the name was changed from Har Sinai Verein to Har Sinai Congregation.
"Oheb Shalom" Congregation
A similar desire for a revised liturgy, but along more conservative lines, led to the formation of the Oheb Shalom Congregation in September of 1853, on the part of a number of dissidents from the original body. Rabbis of this congregation, whose new synagogue on Eutaw place and Lanvale street was considered one of the most beautiful structures in the city, have included the following: – Salomon (1854); S. M. Landsberg (1856–57); Benjamin Szold; and William Rosenau (1892). Alois Kaiser, known as a composer of synagogue music, was the cantor of this congregation.
This was followed by the formation of three Orthodox congregations, the earliest of which was the Bikur Cholim Congregation, incorporated in 1865. The Chizuk Emoonah Congregation was formed in 1871 by dissidents from the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, which had begun to introduce innovations into the synagogue service. The rabbi of the Chizuk Emoonah was Henry W. Schneeberger, who occupied the rabbinate beginning in 1876. A new synagogue was later built by the congregation at McCulloh and Mosher streets. In 1878, the Shearith Israel Congregation was formed by the consolidation of two small congregations. Schepschel Schaffer was its rabbi from 1893 to 1928.
Since then, in the organization of twenty other congregations in Baltimore – only eight of which having a house of worship of their own – the determining factor, in a few cases, has been convenience of locality, but more frequently the bond of national affiliation brought from European countries and reinforced by conservatism in religious sentiment.
An attempt was made in 1856–59 to hold services according to the liturgy of the Spanish and Portuguese Sephardim, of which Solomon Nunes Carvalho was the chief promoter. The congregation was regularly organized in 1857, under the name "Beth Israel", with Jacob M. De Solla as minister.
Of the eight large cemeteries in the city, one, called "Rosedale", was used by seven congregations and three societies; another, on the Philadelphia road, by eight congregations and two societies; and a third, on the Washington road, by three congregations and one society. Each of five congregations, the Baltimore Hebrew, the Fell's Point, the Har Sinai, the Oheb Shalom, and the B'nai Israel, had a cemetery of its own. Besides, there was a small cemetery, now disused, on the Philadelphia road, which was formerly maintained by what was called, for unknown reasons, "Die Irische Ḥebra". The Cohen family and the Etting family owned private cemeteries.
Charitable societies