The Jews' arrival in mid-nineteenth century Boston was announced in the early 1850s when a minyan (prayer-group) constructed Temple Ohabei Shalom on Warren (now Warrenton) Street. For the next seventy-five years, the Jews would maintain a presence in first the lower and then the upper South End. During the first fifty of those seventy-five years, the South End's small Jewish community, principally, consisted of approximately 3,000 Central European "Reform" Jewish-Americans, many of whom had early financial success in commerce. By the 1900s, that small group was joined in the South End by larger numbers of Eastern European "Traditional" Jewish-Americans, many of whom had yet to climb the ladder of financial success. While most of the extant Jewish sites in the South End reflect upon that earlier group's passage, several of the later group's members have left memoirs about their lives in the South End. This BostonWalks' "The Jewish Friendship Trail" in Boston's South End is designed as a 1.5 hour walking tour. It's best taken as part of an escorted group tour.

Let's walk, then, to these sites of Jewish Experience in Boston's South End circa 1850s to 1920s:

• (1) Our first site is at one corner of the Boston Common, where a small monument honors E.A. Filene. E.A. Filene is both a symbol of the early Boston entrepreneurial Jewish-Americans of the second half of the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century and of that same group's devotion to charitable works. Beside Filene, some of the members of this group include Leopold Morse and Jacob and Lina Hecht.

Click on our Filene photo-collage to connect to Filene related sites!

• (2) Our second site is located across from and includes the Charles Street Playhouse. Across the street from the once majestic playhouse building once stood Boston's very first synagogue building. It consisted of a thirty by forty-six feet structure which could seat about one hundred, twenty-five families. Since, at its inception, the congregation followed traditional worship patterns, the small facility had separate seating for men and women, had a mikvah (bathhouse), and a Hebrew school. When the congregation outgrew that small building, Ohabei Shalom purchased the building which today houses the Charles Street Playhouse. This Playhouse building, originally built in 1839 as a Universalist Church, then served Ohabei Shalom from 1863 to 1886. During these years, Ohabei Shalom began the transition from its orthodoxy to reform Judaism. Also, in this building, Boston's Young Mens' Hebrew Association (YMHA) was founded. After 1886, Ohabei Shalom moved to another South End facility which we'll soon visit.

  
  
  

• (3) We'll now walk down Melrose Street from the corner of Broadway where once stood Boston's second synagogue building, Adath Israel, formed as a breakaway congregation from Ohabei Shalom within a short period of time. For thirty years, Adath Israel congregated here. Its well known reform leader, Rabbi Solomon Schindler, was hired here in 1874. Wandering down Melrose Street to Church Street, one almost steps back in time among the many buildings dating back a century or more. There once was at least one other synagogue here on Church Street (at the corner of Winchester Street): Zions Holy Prophets of Israel Memorial Synagogue (1878-1895). Other nearby shuls (houses of worship) included Beth Eil and Anshe Poland.

  
  
  

• (4) Just a few blocks further Westward, near the corner of Berkeley and Appleton Streets, we can glimpse a vivid reason why Jews felt comfortable occupying several communal buildings at this intersection. Here, in the first floor of the Theodore Parker meeting house, Adath Israel ran its Sunday school beginning in 1875. Nearby, Congregation Shaaray Tefilla occupied Paine Hall off and on during the late 1870s and early 1880s. Shaaray Tefilla later joined with Boston's third synagogue Mishkan Israel which had been founded in 1858 to form Mishkan Tefilla.

  
  
  

• (5) Proceeding down Tremont Street to Union park Street, we'll turn left and walk toward the corner of Washington Street. Here stands another majestic building which once served as a synagogue: this one was the third location for Ohabei Shalom. Originally the Unitarian Church of well-known Bostonian, Edward Everett Hale; Ohabei Shalom occupied this building from 1887 until the mid-1920s. Today, it is a Greek Orthodox Church.

  
  
  

• (6)As host, about now we provide some oral-history about the Emerald Street Synagogue and of the Harrison Avenue shopping area. For example, Harrison Avenue was compared to Arlington Street in Chelsea by Mary Antin when she wrote about her growing up in this neighborhood in the first decade of the twentieth century. Filled with Jewish grocers, butchers, bakers, tailors and so on; it, like Arlington Street, was filled with vibrant, very small commerce.

  
  
  

• (7) Heading North, we'll cross Shawmut Avenue, on which, almost a mile further West, the newly merged Mishkan Tefila, congregated in a former church from 1897 to 1907.

  
  
  

• (8) Our next site gives us a good sense of the housing stock which the Jews of the late nineteenth century occupied as they continued their economic climb into the upper South End. We're walking up West Canton Street now. By the 1870s, quite a few Jewish families owned and occupied homes here. We'll stop particularly at one house which was home to Rabbi Raphael Lasker. Rabbi Lasker served as Temple Ohabei Shalom's rabbi from 1876 to 1895. As Ohabei Shalom transitioned from it's second location (now the Charles Street Playhouse) to its third location on Union Park Street, Rabbi Lasker was a voice of Jewish moderation, maintaining a balance for his synagogue's practices midway between traditionalism and Reform.

  
  
  

• (9) We're heading toward the most magnificent synagogue ediface on this walking tour: Temple Israel (fka Adath israel). The congregation's former building at the corner of Columbus Avenue and Northampton Street has been the African Methodist-Episcopal Zion Church for much longer than it was a synagogue but its facade reminds us well of its original design (by Louis Weissbein), construction, and use. At its dedication ceremony in 1884, Rabbi Lasker of Ohabei Shalom and Rev. Edward Everett Hale and well as Temple Israel's own Rabbi Schindler gave presentations. While the building only served Temple Israel for just over two decades until 1906, its preservation is a wonder to behold.

  
  
  

• (10) Members from Temple Ohabei Shalom also formed one of Boston's most successful social/business clubs, the Elysium Club. While the Club's building no longer stands on its site on Huntington Avenue, it was designed by the same architect who designed the synagogue we just visited and possibly emulated the grandeur of that building. For quite a few years, the leadership of both Temple Israel and the Elysium Club was under the strong guidance of Jacob Hecht.

  
  
  

• (11) Our final site, appropriately, then, on the way back to the starting point of this walking tour of Boston's South End is one of the homes of one of Boston's most prominent Jewish couples in the five decades between 1870 and 1920. While the site is technically in the Back Bay, Jacob and Lina Hecht's involvement in Boston Jewry transcended and crossed the boundaries among the North, West and South Ends as well as between the Central and Eastern European Jews of that era.

Have you clicked on these other, on-line selections from Michael Alan Ross' new, The Ten Commandments Guidebook? The original, humorous, satirical, political song lyrics, Please Keep Us Wealthy, considering the 8th Commandment, Don't steal! The original, compassionate, song lyrics, Try to Smile and Love Your Neighbor, considering what Mr. Ross labels the 11th Commandment, Love your neighbor as yourself! The original historical review poem, Zionists, considering the 10th Commandment, Don't Covet! The original acrostic poem, Anti-Semite, considering the 6th Commandment, You shall not murder! The original exhortatory poem, From Atonement to Good Deeds, considering the 7th Commandment, No adultery. The original, mystical, kabbalah-vision-type poem, Commit, considering the 1st Commandment, Recognize God/Goodness!

Now available! The Jewish Friendship Trail Guidebook 6 Self-Guided Walking/Bicycling Jewish Boston History Tours Covers Boston, Brookline, and Cambridge Softcover 198 pages with maps & b/w photos Print out this Book Order Form to order now!

Now available! The Ten Commandments Guidebook Ways to Self-Struggle with Classic Morals In Song, Poetry, and Prose Covers 10 Commandments Plus One Other! Softcover 153 pages with practical suggestions pages! Print out this Book Order Form to order now!

Yea, Team! The Boston Red Sox and The New England Patriots!

From the Charles River, a red, white, and blue political agenda flows!

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