Milwaukee

On the western shores of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of three rivers, the city of Milwaukee, in the state of Wisconsin, occupies a singular place in the cartography of the North American Jewish diaspora. An industrial city marked by a strong German imprint, from the earliest decades of its existence it welcomed a Jewish community whose trajectory mirrors, in miniature and with its own inflections, the great narrative of Jewish immigration to the United States: the arrival of German-speaking pioneers in the mid-nineteenth century, the massive wave of Eastern European Jews between 1880 and 1920, the work of assimilation and philanthropy, and then the lasting establishment of a structured communal life.

The history of the Jews in Milwaukee began in the early 1840s with the arrival of Jewish immigrants from the German-speaking states and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Throughout the nineteenth century, Milwaukee was the heart of Wisconsin's Jewish population, with 80% of the state's Jews living there [History of the Jews in Milwaukee, Wikipedia]. This volume sets out to retrace this presence, from its pioneering origins to the contemporary community, carefully distinguishing what the archive establishes, what tradition transmits, and what research conjectures. The city gave the world an exceptional figure — Golda Meir, future Prime Minister of Israel — and offered fertile ground to institutions, synagogues, and charitable works, some of which still endure.

The first Jews to set foot on Milwaukee's soil came in the wake of the emigration from the German states, at a time when the city was still but a fledgling settlement. Milwaukee's Jewish community dates back to a period preceding the very birth of the city, the first Jews having arrived in the region between 1842 and 1849 according to the Jewish Museum Milwaukee [Visit Milwaukee, Jewish American Heritage]. These pioneers, drawn from an often urban and increasingly secularized milieu, integrated readily into the vast German-speaking population that then made Milwaukee a "Deutsch-Athen," a German Athens of the New World.

Religious life soon took shape. The first organized Jewish community came into being in Milwaukee in 1844. By 1856, the city counted three synagogues [Jewish Virtual Library, Wisconsin]. The genesis of the oldest congregation illustrates the liturgical tensions particular to this first generation. A group of twelve Jews celebrated Yom Kippur in 1847, eventually forming the Imanu-Al congregation in 1850. Another small group of pioneering Jewish families gathered to form the B'ne Jeshurun congregation in 1856 [Encyclopedia of Milwaukee]. These schisms reflected the disagreements between adherents of the Polish and German rites. In 1850, twelve men founded the Imanu-Al congregation, a predecessor of the Congregation Emanu-El B'ne Jeshurun, today in River Hills. A blend of Polish and German Jewish immigrants, the congregation was divided over which traditions to follow [Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle].

Beyond Milwaukee itself, pioneering Jewish figures left their mark on the territorial history of Wisconsin. The Alsatian Bernard Schleisinger Weil owned thousands of acres of farmland northwest of Milwaukee. The town of Schleisingerville—later renamed Slinger—was named after him. He was the first Jew to sit in the Wisconsin legislature, four years after statehood was proclaimed in 1848 [Jewish Virtual Library]. This early settlement thus established a communal foundation and a civic respectability that would weigh upon the decades to come.

The economic integration of Milwaukee's Jews proceeded with remarkable speed, and nowhere more visibly than in the garment industry. Labor, commercial expertise, and family networks converged to make this sector a field of Jewish excellence. The first organized Jewish community emerged in Milwaukee. Jews dominated the city's manufacture of clothing and footwear. By 1895, almost every garment factory in Milwaukee was owned by Jews [Wisconsin Historical Society].

This dominance was not immediate but gradual, as the trade censuses of the early 1860s attest. Jews dominated the city's manufacture of clothing and footwear. Of the fourteen merchant tailors and clothing merchants in Milwaukee in 1862, five were owned and operated by Jews [History of the Jews in Milwaukee, Wikipedia]. Within a single generation, a minority presence became a sectoral hegemony.

Alongside this economic ascent, the foundations of a Jewish civil society were laid. Numerous charitable and fraternal organizations were also established during the 1800s, such as the fraternal organization B'nai B'rith, the Milwaukee Jewish Mission, and the Jewish Alliance School [History of the Jews in Milwaukee, Wikipedia]. The Civil War also left its mark on this associative fabric: multiple relief organizations were created to aid destitute veterans and their families after the American Civil War [History of the Jews in Milwaukee, Wikipedia]. Eager to demonstrate their loyalty to their adopted homeland, Milwaukee's Jews made their synagogues places of patriotic affirmation. The synagogues of Milwaukee promoted Jewish integration into American life by holding regular services on Thanksgiving Day and celebrating Washington's birthday [Wisconsin Historical Society].

The last quarter of the nineteenth century transformed the character of the community. The established, urban, and assimilated German Jews were followed by tens of thousands of Jews from the Russian Empire and Poland, bearers of a more traditional, Yiddish-speaking culture. Between 1880 and 1920, millions of Jews from Eastern Europe and Russia came to the United States. This group differed in many respects from the German Jews who had preceded them [Wisconsin Historical Society].

The sociological differences between the two populations were profound and sometimes generated internal frictions. The German Jews had come from an urban and secular environment, whereas the Russian Jews were more traditional and came from rural regions. These Russian and Polish Jews also tended to live separately from Russian and Polish Christians, unlike the German Jews who had settled among other Germans [Wisconsin Historical Society]. The demographic growth was dramatic: in 1880, 2,559 Jews lived in Wisconsin; by 1889, they numbered 10,000 [Wisconsin Historical Society].

These newcomers gave rise to a vibrant Jewish quarter, structured around a thoroughfare that became legendary. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were a high point of Jewish immigration to the city of Milwaukee. The Jewish population more than tripled between 1895 and 1925. Thousands of Jewish immigrants, many of them Russian, settled downtown, on Walnut Street [Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle]. This place was to become a home for the Russian and Polish Jews of Milwaukee during the 1920s and 1930s. Around Walnut Street lived a lively community of Jewish immigrants [Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle]. The municipality even attempted experiments in rural redistribution: in 1904, the Industrial Removal Office helped relocate 18 Russian and Romanian families from Milwaukee to Arpin, in Wood County, in order to establish an agricultural community there. The Arpin settlers, however, did not adapt to the agricultural way of life, and many returned to Milwaukee [Wisconsin Historical Society].

The influx of destitute immigrants called for a philanthropic response of unprecedented scale, whose most enduring expression remains the work of Lizzie Black Kander. She embodies the encounter between the organized charity of the established German Jews and the concrete needs of the newly arrived Easterners. The Jewish community center as we know it was founded by Lizzie Black Kander in 1895 to support immigrants in the Milwaukee area. Originally called the Jewish Mission, it was funded in part by the proceeds of Kander's "Settlement Cookbook," based on the recipes used in the Mission's cooking classes [Harry & Rose Samson Family JCC].

The institutional development of this work follows a well-documented trajectory. The Jewish Mission joined with the Council of Jewish Women and the Sisterhood of Personal Service to form the Milwaukee Jewish Settlement. The Settlement rented a house on Fifth Street. Lizzie Kander published The Settlement Cookbook, based on recipes that Kander and others used in the Mission's cooking classes [Harry & Rose Samson Family JCC]. The Settlement then moved to a larger house, and later took possession of the newly built Abraham Lincoln House, at the corner of Ninth Street and Vine Street, forerunner of the Jewish Community Center [Harry & Rose Samson Family JCC].

The famous recipe collection constitutes a singular historical object: conceived as a fundraising instrument, it became a classic of American cuisine. The Settlement Cook Book was compiled by Lizzie Kander in 1901 to raise funds for the "Settlement," a community center for children and adults [History of the Jews in Milwaukee, Wikipedia]. Thus a culinary work born of the education of immigrant women ultimately transcended its original audience and spread, far beyond the community, the imprint of a Jewish women's philanthropy of Milwaukee.

As charitable organizations multiplied, the need to coordinate resources became apparent, giving rise to an institutional architecture that remains today the backbone of the community. Competition for funds gave birth to the idea that it would be sensible to raise money collectively rather than competitively. Jewish federations were established throughout the country, including in Milwaukee in 1902 [Milwaukee Jewish Federation].

The institutional network grew denser in the first decades of the century. New organizations were established, joining Milwaukee's first social service agency, the Hebrew Relief Society, known today as Jewish Family Services. Mount Sinai Hospital came into being in 1902 [Milwaukee Jewish Federation]. The institution was renamed the Jewish Community Center in 1931. The Hebrew Free School for Jewish Education was launched in 1904 and the Hebrew Sheltering Home opened in 1909 [Milwaukee Jewish Federation].

The Great Depression and the rise of European perils tested this construction and forced it to reinvent itself. During the Great Depression, the Federated Jewish Charities collapsed and ceased operations in 1937. The problems facing the Jews of Europe and the need to absorb refugees fleeing Nazi Germany prompted leaders to reorganize a central fundraising instrument, the Jewish Welfare Fund [Milwaukee Jewish Federation]. This refounding, driven both by the economic crisis and by the urgency of rescuing European Jews, bears witness to the adaptability of a community that knew how to transform its trials into enduring institutions.

No figure better embodies the bond between Milwaukee and the Jewish world than Golda Meir, née Mabovitch, who spent her youth in the city before becoming one of the architects of the State of Israel. Her path weaves together the personal narrative passed down in her memoirs and the facts established by the school and historical record. Born in Kiev, Russia, on May 3, 1898, Golda Mabovitch's family fled the Russian pogroms for the United States in 1906. They settled in Milwaukee with the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society [Wisconsin Historical Society].

Her Milwaukee schooling is attested by institutions that today bear her name. Fourth Street School operated from 1890 to 1979, before becoming Golda Meir School from 1979 onward. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it stands in the King Drive historic district [Golda Meir School]. The young girl displayed early a sense of public engagement that both her biographers and her own recollections recorded. She became Israel's first woman Prime Minister in 1969 and held that office during the Yom Kippur War [Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle].

It was in Milwaukee itself that Meir's Zionist convictions took shape. In 1917, Meir took a teaching post at a Yiddish-speaking school in Milwaukee, which brought her into closer contact with the ideals of Labor Zionism that would mark the rest of her life [Wisconsin Historical Society]. Her local educational path was demanding: she attended North Division High School, then, in 1916, the Milwaukee State Normal School for Teachers [Shepherd Express]. Thus the trajectory of the future Israeli leader emblematically illustrates how a community of Midwestern immigrants could nurture and project, all the way to the heart of the Near East, the ideals of Jewish national renewal.

From the handful of German-speaking merchants gathered for Yom Kippur in 1847 to the structured and philanthropic community of the twentieth century, the Jewish history of Milwaukee traces a trajectory of rootedness and influence. Strengthened by its synagogues, its charitable works, its garment industries, and its exceptional figures, this community left an imprint that far exceeds its demographic weight. The Jewish community never constituted a major segment of Wisconsin's population, but the remarkable people of this community left an outsized mark [Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle].

To this day, this legacy remains alive. In 2011, Milwaukee was home to 25,800 Jews, or 78% of Wisconsin's Jews, making it the 42nd largest Jewish community in the United States [History of the Jews in Milwaukee, Wikipedia]. Between the transmitted memory of the pioneers, the meticulous archive of congregations and federations, and the worldwide memory of a child of Walnut Street who became a head of government, Milwaukee illustrates the fruitfulness of a diaspora capable of taking root in a Midwestern city while projecting its aspirations onto the universal stage.