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Portland, Oregon is blessed with a mild climate,
good rainfall, clean air and clean drinking water.
A pioneer spirit, a sense of individualism, and
acceptance for the "weird" thrive in this college
town. Portlanders garden, read books, listen to
and perform music, support humane and
environmental causes and the arts. Portlanders
love coffee, beer, healthy food, holidays, dogs,
hiking and sunshine. Residents row, kayak and
paddleboard in the rivers. The ocean and mountains
are nearby.
Portland's rivers connect with the Pacific Ocean,
and this made Portland a valuable port early in
its history. Bridges were built to accommodate
large ships. Shipyards and dry docks were
established. Riverfront factories, such as the
B.P. John Furniture Company, would roll their
goods down to the river to load on boats. B.P.
John's dock was called "John's Landing."
Portland is a city of immigrants. Jewish people
were among the immigrants who settled in Portland
starting in 1849. Many were merchants; some became
very successful. A few were elected to city and
state offices, including governor.
Samuel Merton Suwol, 1904-1980, was a lawyer and
teacher in Portland. He published a pamphlet in
1958 [possibly printed at his law office] called Jewish
History of Oregon, in honor of 100 years of
Jewish settlement in Oregon. In the Foreword,
Suwol described how the pioneers arrived in
Oregon. Some came by ship around the Horn, or
across the Isthmus [of Panama], then by ship to
California, and by ship from California to Oregon.
Some came overland on the Oregon Trail in covered
wagons. "Among the earliest Jews who followed the
Oregon Train by ox team and wagon, braving the
desert and mountains, hostile Indians, cholera and
the elements were Dr. Israel Moses, Herman
Ehrenberg and the brothers Jacob and Louis
Fleischner." [Suwol, 1958, Portland, OR, Foreword]
On page 1, Suwol wrote that "Oregon's first
pioneer Jews settled in the Willamette valley in
Albany, Corvallis, Oregon City, Eugene, Willamette
and Portland. The first known Oregon Jewish
immigrant was Herman Ehrenberg, who came here in
1840."
On page 10, Suwol wrote that the first Jewish
woman to arrive in Portland was "Mrs. Weinshank"
in 1854.
Steven Lowenstein's book also mentions Mrs.
Weinshank, said she arrived in 1853, and that she
started a boarding house for single Jewish men.
[p. 7]
Lowenstein stated on p. 49 that the next Jewish
woman to arrive came in 1854, and was Mollie
Radelsheimer from New York, the new bride of Simon
Blumauer. Their son, Louis, was the first Jewish
child born in Oregon. [p. 50]
Lowenstein wrote that more Jewish women had
arrived by 1858. At that point it was necessary to
establish a synagogue. Simon Baum and Marjana
Bettman were the first Jews to be married in
Oregon, in the new synagogue/meeting room, in
1858. [p. 49]
More about the synagogues is on the Jewish Life
page.
In 1889, Isaac Markens, a journalist from New
York, noted in a series of historical sketches, The
Hebrews in America, that the prosperity of
the Jewish merchants in Portland was more widely
distributed than in any other section of the
Union, and the Jewish people were prominent in
public affairs.
Historian Jacob Rader Marcus described the
importance of the early German Jewish community in
Oregon at the 1938 anniversary of the founding of
Congregation Beth Israel. Marcus said the Jewish
people in Oregon adjusted themselves to their
environment better, and reached higher positions
in political life, more than in any other
state. [Lowenstein, Steven, The Jews of Oregon
1850-1950; Portland, Oregon, Jewish Historical
Society of Oregon, 1987; with permission from the
Oregon Jewish Museum, formerly the Jewish Historical
Society of Oregon, p. 69]
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia:
"Portland is the largest and most populous city the
the U.S. state of Oregon, and the seat of Multnomah
County. It is a major port in the Willamette Valley
region of the Pacific Northwest, at the confluence
of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in
Northwestern Oregon. As of 2019, Portland had an
estimated population of 654,741, making it the 26th
most populated city in the United States, the
six-most populous on the West Coast, and the
second-most populous in the Pacific Northwest after
Seattle. Approximately 2.4 million people live in
the Portland metropolitan statistical area [MSA],
making it the 25th most populous in the United
States. Its combined statistical area [CSA] ranks
19th-largest with a population of around 3.2
million. Approximately 60% of Oregon's population
resides within the Portland metropolitan area.
Named after Portland, Maine, the Oregon settlement
began to be populated in the 1830s near the end of
the Oregon Trail. Its water access provided
convenient transportation of goods, and the timber
industry was a major force in the city's early
economy. At the turn of the 20th century, the city
had a reputation as one of the most dangerous port
cities in the world, a hub for organized crime and
racketeering. After the city's economy experienced
an industrial boom during World War II, its
hard-edged reputation began to dissipate. Beginning
in the 1960s, Portland became noted for its growing
progressive political values, earning it a
reputation as a bastion of counterculture.
The city operates with a commission-based government
guided by a mayor and a council of commissioners as
well as Metro, the only directly elected
metropolitan planning organization in the United
States. In 2025, the City of Portland will begin
phasing out its commission form of government. The
City Council will set policy and the mayor will
oversee city business with the help of a city
administrator. The city government is notable for
its land-use planning and investment in public
transportation. Portland is frequently recognized as
one of the world's greenest cities to live in, and
Portland was the first city to enact a comprehensive
plan to reduce CO2 emissions. Its climate is marked
by warm, dry summers and cool, rainy winters. This
climate is ideal for growing roses, and Portland has
been called the "City of Roses" for over a century.
In 1888, the Madame Caroline Testout hybrid
tea rose variety was introduced to Portland.
Thousands of rose bushes were planted along twenty
miles of street to beautify the city for the
visitors to the Lewis and Clark Centennial
Exposition of 1905. In 1907, the city held its first
Portland Rose Festival. The International Rose Test
Garden began during World War I to protect European
rose species from the war in Europe. In 2003,
Portland adopted "City of Roses" as its official
nickname. [Wikipedia]
Fur traders and trappers established a path to
Oregon City and Portland between 1811 and 1840.
Gradually the path was cleared and widened for
wagons and wagon trains. From 1846-1869, the Oregon
Trail and its offshoots were used by an estimated
400,000 settlers, farmers, miners, ranchers,
business owners and their families. The
Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869.
Interstates 80 and 84 follow parts of the Oregon
Trail, and pass through towns that were established
to serve travelers on the Oregon Trail. [Wikipedia]
Large numbers of pioneer settlers began arriving in
the Willamette Valley in the 1830s via the Oregon
Trail, though life was originally centered in nearby
Oregon City. In the early 1840s a new settlement
emerged ten miles from the mouth of the Willamette
River, roughly halfway between Oregon City and Fort
Vancouver. This community [Portland] was initially
referred to as "Stumptown" and "The Clearing,"
because of the many trees cut down to allow for its
growth. [Wikipedia]
Not on the Oregon Trail, Jacksonville, in southern
Oregon, was a site where gold was discovered about
1851. Gold was mined there until the 1860s. The town
grew from 1851 to 1884. By 1860, about one-third of
the merchants were Jewish. In 1884, the Oregon and
California Railroad was built, bypassing
Jacksonville. Most of the residents left, and some
moved to Portland, including some Jewish merchants.
About one hundred old buildings have survived, and
Jacksonville is a National Historic District.
[Eisenberg, Ellen, "Jews in Oregon" essay posted in
oregonencyclopedia.org
https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/jews-in-oregon/#.Xz4W9pNKhBw.
Used with Ellen Eisenberg's permission.]
Immigrants from many countries arrived in Portland
about 1849; many of them were Jewish. The Hirsch
Brothers started stores in several towns in the
Willamette Valley. Henry Heppner, a pack-train
operator and merchant started his own town, called
Heppner. Aaron Meier was a peddler in gold country;
he founded his first store in Portland in 1857. In
1872, he joined with Emil and Sigmund Frank to form
Meier & Frank Department Store. Many of the
Jewish merchants were established merchants from San
Francisco and other U.S. cities. Jewish residents
joined religious, civic and fraternal organizations.
[Eisenberg, Ellen, "Jews in Oregon" essay]
Congregation Beth Israel began in 1858. Its first
building was completed in 1861, and was the first
synagogue building in Oregon. Its second building
was completed in 1889. It held 750 people, had a
large rose window and a pipe organ. Rabbi Stephen S.
Wise served there from 1900 to 1906. There was an
arson fire in 1923. The new synagogue was completed
in 1928. It seats 1,000 people, and includes the
Sherman Education Center and Schnitzer Family
Center. It became a Reform synagogue.
Congregation Ahavai Sholom was founded in 1869 by
men from Posen, Prussia [now in Poland]. It became a
Conservative synagogue.
Benevolent associations were formed by men's groups
and women's groups, starting in 1859. The
Neighborhood House was established in 1905. It
provided classes, athletic facilities and social
services.
Sephardic Jews were ousted from Spain in 1492, and
settled in many countries. Many retained their
language, culture and religion. About 1916, there
was an influx of Sephardic Jews, and they formed
Ahavath Achim, the first Sephardic congregation in
Oregon. The members came from Turkey and other
locations in the Ottoman Empire, including the Isle
of Rhodes. At Ahavath Achim, the services were led
by the congregants for many years. The new building
on Barbur was completed in 1965; the next year, the
congregation hired its first Rabbi. The sanctuary
has a domed ceiling, so no microphone is needed.
[Information about the synagogues is from various
authors, oregonencyclopedia.org.]
Most of the early Jewish residents lived in a
neighborhood just south of Downtown, called South
Portland. "Children of Eastern European and
Sephardic immigrants who came of age in the 1920s
and 1930s remember the neighborhood as insular and
nurturing. It was a time of increased antisemitism
locally and nationally, and the neighborhood and its
institutions provided a respite. Beginning in the
1920s and 1930s, and accelerating in the 1940s and
1950s, families moved to more prosperous areas of
the city. Still, South Portland remained a Jewish
institutional hub, with ethnic shops, the Portland
Hebrew School, the Jewish Home for the Aged,
Neighborhood House, the B'nai B'rith Building [later
the Jewish Community Center], and all but two of the
city's congregations." [Eisenberg, Ellen, "Jews in
Oregon" essay]
In 1958, urban renewal began to push the Jewish
neighborhood to a southwest Portland neighborhood
called Hillsdale. A new community center was built.
Neveh Shalom synagogue was built, a conservative
congregation combined from Neveh Zedek and Ahavai
Sholom. [various authors, oregonencyclopedia.org]
Today there are twelve Portland synagogues listed in
Google. It is estimated that there are at least
40,000 Jewish residents in Portland. There is a
Jewish community center, a Jewish assisted living
center, Jewish Federation, a Jewish Museum, a
Holocaust Memorial, a Chabad chapter, a B'nai B'rith
camp, five Jewish cemeteries and a Jewish
Genealogical Society chapter.
Linda Kelley
September 2020
Searchable Databases
- JewishGen
"United States" Database (for Portland,
OR, USA)
-
- The "All USA Database" is a multiple
database search facility, which incorporates
all of the following databases:
JewishGen Family Finder(JGFF), JewishGen
Online Worldwide Burial Registry (JOWBR), JG
Discussion Group Archives, SIG Mailing List
Archives and much much more.
Other Portland Links
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