From Historic Sheboygan County by Gustave
Buchen page 307-309, published in 1944, and updated and revised
in 1975.
Aaron Zion, probably the first Jew to settle
in Sheboygan, opened a millinery shop on North 8th street.
Shortly afterward Sol Rosenbaum, a clothes peddler and Joseph
Buntmann, a fruit merchant were the next Jews to settle in the
town. Nearly all the Jewish immigrants to Sheboygan came from a
region of Russia that is today part of Belorus, where they
lived in small towns and were merchants, tailors, shoemakers,
money lenders, and dealers in grain, cattle , furs and hides.
They came mainly to improve their opportunities and economic
conditions. Usually the man of the family came first by
himself, and then earned enough money to bring the rest of his
family. Many started their lives in Sheboygan as itinerant
peddlers with packs on their backs and ultimately opened small
businesses.
Herman J. Holman who came to Sheboygan in
1890, together with his uncles Nachsun and Michael, who
immigrated in 1889, first worked as tailors. Herman opened his
own shop for tailoring, cleaning and pressing in a building on
North 8th Street. Several years later he opened a junk peddling
business on the south side. Ultimately he had a building
erected at South 14th Street and Broadway and started a dry
goods business, with his wife operating the store, and he
continued with the junk business. In a small shed next to the
store he opened a small factory and installed a cutting table
and a number of sewing machines to make pants that he sold to
local retail stores. In 1902 he and his brothers Aaron and
Harry started an overall manufacturing factory on Michigan
Avenue, however the venture was closed after a year. In 1906 he
opened a factory on Calumet Drive, which he named H. J. Holman
& Sons. In 1925 the business was moved to a large factory
at South 14th Street and Alabama Avenue and renamed the
Lakeland Manufacturing Company. Aaron Holman founded the
Reliable Shirt & Overall Company on North 15th Street and
Harry Holman started the Holman Manufacturing Company on N.
13th Street.
Sheboygan Jews remained strictly orthodox in
terms of their religious practice, in compliance with the
practices that they brought from Russia. This was in contrast
to the reform Judiasm practiced by some Jews of German descent
in nearby Milwaukee (50 miles south of Sheboygan). There were
three synagoges, Adas Israel, Ahavas Sholem and Ohel Moshe.
Adas Israel, the oldest congregation, which was started in the
home of Nachsun Holman on North 8th street near Bluff Avenue in
about 1890. The first synagogue building was a small house, and
then moved to a larger building both located on North 8th
street. The building was moved to North 13th street and Carl
Avenue in 1907 and was used by the congregation until about
1975. Ahavas Sholem was first located in a wooden building on
Michigan Avenue just east of North 8th street and in 1903 was
moved to 13th street and Geele Avenue, where it remained until
1975 (see photo above). Ohel Moshe, founded in 1920 had its
synagogue located at North 15th street and Marie Court.
The Jews of Sheboygan created an amazing
number of social and fraternal organizations. The oldest was a
mutual benefit society, called the Western Star. The Jewish
Workman's Circle (Arbeiter Ring) was founded in 1914(?) (30
years before this publication) There also is a chapter of the
B'nai B'rith, one of the largest Jewish organizations in the US
and the world. This chapter is called the Davis Lodge, after
Herman Davis, one of it founding fathers, and was created in
1919. In 1925 a junior Jewish organization for young men,
called A.Z.A., was formed.
From the founding of the Jewish community
until the 1960s most of the Jews lived in a neighborhood ion
the north-west side of Sheboygan in the vicinity of Geele
Avenue (see map above). This was because William Schaetzer, the
original owner of the subdivision, who encouraged them to
settle there and offered them favorable terms of purchase.
There were about 175 Jewish families in Sheboygan at the peak
there were about 150 familes. Within the decade before this
publication, many have started to move to Milwauk ee and some
to northern Wisconsin.
Information provided mainly by George
Paykel, George Holman and David Rabinovitz.