THE JEWISH QUARTER |
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East European Jews began to settle around the eastern end of
South Street in the early 1880's. Surprisingly, the boundaries
of the area were defined early. In "Our Philadelphia
Letter" for August 20, 1886, a regular column of the
American Hebrew,
the Jewish quarter of
Philadelphia was described as " ... bounded by Third and
Eighth and Lombard and Christian Streets." As the years
passed, the quarter grew slightly to the north, taking in Pine
and Spruce Streets, and it shifted slightly to the east. Until
the turn of the century, Jewish immigrant communal life did
not spill south across Washington Avenue, although isolated
pockets of Jewish residential life sprang up early in South
Philadelphia. This book focuses on an area bounded by Spruce
Street on the north, Christian Street on the south, 2nd Street
on the east, and 6th Street on the west. Several other nearby
blocks and properties are included. |
South 4th Street, Philadelphia, Sep 1925
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When east European Jews began to settle in the area around South
Street, German Jews described as "uptown" the area in which they
lived to distinguish it from the area where the east European Jews
were settling, which was "downtown." Market Street, the main
east-west thoroughfare which runs from the Delaware River to the
Schuylkill River separated the two camps, uptown being north of
Market Street and downtown, south of Market Street. In the
English-language newspapers of the day, the area where the
immigrants settled south of Market Street was described as a slum
district, and in truth it was. Since so many Jews settled here, it
did become a de facto
ghetto, although few
referred to it as such. But however others referred to it, the east
European Jew simply called the area, in Yiddish, the Jewish quarter.
East European Jews not only put down roots around South Street, they
settled elsewhere in the city, notably, on North 2nd Street and
streets surrounding it in Northern Liberties, in isolated areas of
South Philadelphia, and in "Jew-town," the area around Tulip and
William Streets in Port Richmond. When writers wanted to describe
these non-contiguous areas where Russian Jewish immigrants settled,
they sometimes referred to them collectively as the Russian colony,
a term used to describe the vast settlement of Russian Jews
throughout Philadelphia. We will focus our attention on only one
part of the larger settlement, the Jewish quarter. Unlike Jewish
quarters in the Old World, in Philadelphia a wall did not surround
the quarter and there was no Judengasse
(Jew Street). Or,
was there a wall in the minds of the immigrants? And was South
Street, Jew Street?
East
European Jews were called
Yid (singular) or
Yidn (plural). The word carried with it a pejorative
connotation for those who wanted it to, but when used by east
European Jews themselves, like the famous Yiddish actor Boris
Thomashevsky, the word Yid was spoken and written with much
love, affection, and humor because the east European writer or
speaker knew all that was wrapped up in those three letters. The
words Yid and Yidn clearly differentiated the
newcomers from the Yahudi (singular) or Yahudim
(plural) who were the Jews from uptown, that is, the German Jews.
Yidn could sometimes be seen in caftans, with peyes (side
curls). Some women wore the flowing skirts and fatsheyles
(shawls) of the shtetl. The Yahudim
dressed exactly as
non-Jewish Philadelphians but could be distinguished from non-Jewish
Philadelphians by the fact that they were members of the Mercantile
Club and could be seen entering the beautiful temples of the city.
Why
did Russian Jews settle in the Jewish quarter of Philadelphia? David
B. Tierkel, editor of the Yiddish newspaper, the
Philadelphia Jewish
American,
addressed that question as early
as 1908: "Twenty-five years ago when Jews came from Russia in
masses, they found South Street to be the most prominent business
street in South Philadelphia. Several German Jews had businesses on
South Street. The Russian Jews could talk to them and the new
arrivals began to settle around South Street." Tierkel added that
rent for houses in the small streets surrounding South Street was
just a few dollars, and these properties were located only five or
six blocks from Strawberry and Bank Streets where many of the
immigrants were employed in the garment industry. (Strawberry and
Bank Streets, many of whose commercial buildings have been preserved
and put to more modern uses today, are found outside the old Jewish
quarter in the square bounded by Market and Chestnut Streets on the
north and south and 2nd and 3rd Streets on the east and west.)
Unstated by Tierkel, but surely a major reason for settling in the
Jewish quarter, was the location of the area, only several blocks
from the Emigrant Depot on the wharf at Christian Street and the
Delaware River.
The
immigrants were hemmed in on all sides. To the south was Washington
Avenue. In the early years there were not thick settlements of
Russian Jews south of Washington Avenue, as there would be after the
real estate boom of 1900. To the first generation of east European
Jewish immigrants, Washington Avenue was a border. Those who
wandered south of Washington Avenue were subjected to random
beatings. A Jew was wary of crossing that wide-open street on which
the trains ran. To the north, above Spruce Street, commercial
property values were high and there were few residential buildings.
East of 3rd Street the Polish and Irish did not flee upon the Jewish
invasion. Living in a narrow bandwidth of streets that ran down to
the docks at the Delaware River, they stayed and often singled out
for abuse Jews who stumbled across 2nd Street. West of the Jewish
quarter were African Americans in the northern streets and Italians
in the southern streets. The scant evidence that has come down to us
on Jewish African American and Jewish Italian relationships on this
western border fails to picture the hostilities that existed between
Jews and other ethnic groups.
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