We're Everywhere, Part 7

Over the years, I've posted about Connecticut's small rural synagogues. (Hebron; Lisbon; Ellington; Columbia.) In many cases, these modest buildings are the only visible legacy of the Jewish farming communities that thrived here from the late 1800s through the mid-20th century. Until now, the shuls I've written about were all located in the eastern half of the state.

Adath Israel Synagogue on Huntington Road in Newtown, above, is the only known example of a rural synagogue in western Connecticut. It was built in 1919 on a farm owned by Israel Nezvesky. An article on Connecticut's rural synagogues in Connecticut Explored (also published in the book A Life of the Land: Connecticut's Jewish Farmers), states that so many Jewish farmers once lived in this neighborhood that the area was known as "Little Palestine."

This little shul was used by the local Jewish community until 2007, when a new, larger synagogue was constructed nearby.

Nutmeg Poisoning

-I often wish I could go to sleep and not wake up until the trend of travel writing being almost exclusively food writing in disguise is over. But I do enjoy when food writing comes over to the travel writing side, especially when it involves travel in, or to, Connecticut. So I love Alycia Chrosniak's Hartford guide on Food52.

-I write a lot about Jewish history in Connecticut, both on this blog and elsewhere. If you like the stuff I've written about this elsewhere, stay tuned, more is coming, and if you're into Connecticut's Jewish history, watch the Old State House's program about how Jews in the Nutmeg State gained religious freedom.

-On that note, in May I went to the premier of Harvesting Stones, a documentary about Eastern Connecticut's Jewish farmers. I don't know how many other options will exist to see this film in a theatre, but if you get the chance, and you're interested in the topic, I recommend it.

-The NYT has a little slide show and a story about the summers Martin Luther King Jr. spent working in the tobacco fields around Simsbury.

-Saturday, June 11, 2016, is Connecticut Open House Day. Yesterday, I was happy to return to WNPR's Where We Live to participate in a conversation about some of the best attractions to visit on Open House Day (or any other day, really!) You can listen to the show here.

Nutmeg Poisoning

-I'm not sure why I always take note whenever the NYT deigns to cover something in Connecticut. It's a little (or possibly a lot) pathetic, and probably symptomatic of some larger Connecticut inferiority complex malaise. Still, the NYT reviewed the renovated Wadsworth Atheneum.

-Someone is making a movie based on Little Pink House, Jeff Benedict's book about the Kelo v. New London case. Filming began last month in...Vancouver.

-Continuing on the legal theme, Where We Live did a show on some of the New Haven Colony's earliest court cases. If that sounds boring, don't worry - there's bestiality and drunken sailors. (The segment begins at 25:00.)

-I've been listening the Welcome to Connecticut podcast, in which Ken Tuccio interviews an assortment of well known and/or successful Connecticut residents. To be completely honest, I have no idea who most of these people are, but some of the interviews are fascinating (while simultaneously making you feel unaccomplished and rather hopeless.)

-I fell down the deep hole that is the search results for "Connecticut" on the Architectural Digest site. And now you can too!

-If you haven't been to the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, you should go. If you have been, you might enjoy this piece on color-blind Canadian painter Arthur Heming's time at the esteemed artists' colony.

-Regular readers of this blog will know that I've written a fair amount here and elsewhere about the Jews of rural eastern Connecticut. (Click the "Jews" tag below or to the right to see some of that writing.) I'm always excited to see that other people care about them too. Someone even wrote a play about them, which will premier for the 100-year anniversary of a synagogue in Chester.

Connecticut for the Jewish Traveler

Some time ago, a friend asked me for suggestions of where in Connecticut to send a Jewish group visiting New England from the Midwest. "I'll write a list!" I said, and proceeded to not write a list.
That particular group has probably come and gone with no help from me, but I thought a list of suggestions for travelers interested in Jewish historic and cultural sites around the Nutmeg State would be worth compiling anyway.

Please note: this list is not comprehensive, nor does it attempt to be. This state is full of Jewish cemeteries, delis, street names, and so many other little signs of historic and contemporary Jewish life that to gather them all would be a year-long project. As always when dealing with Connecticut for any reason, it's best to search for anything you would like to know based on the specific towns you'll be visiting. 


-Jews have lived in Connecticut since the 17th century, but the state's oldest synagogue building was built in Hartford in 1876. It is now the Charter Oak Cultural Center (pictured above) which hosts art exhibits and events that reflect the cultural diversity of modern Hartford, including programming dedicated to Jewish heritage.

-The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford has information on the city's other historic synagogues (now mostly used as churches) as well as exhibits open to the public. In addition, the organization runs guided bus tours that explore Hartford's historic Jewish neighborhoods and important sites in the city.

-The Jewish Historical Society of Greater New Haven held their first tour of the New Haven area's Jewish History in the summer of 2014 (on bicycles.) The JHSGNH is associated with the Ethnic Heritage Center at Southern Connecticut State University. This "ethnic heritage archives, museum, and research center" also hosts local African American, Irish American, Italian American, and Ukrainian American historical societies.

-New Haven's Holocaust Memorial, located in Edgewood Park, was "the country’s first Holocaust Memorial built on public land when it was dedicated in 1977." There is also a Holocaust Memorial at the Mandell JCC in West Hartford.

-In the summer, Chabad of the Shoreline hosts the Shoreline Jewish Festival on the Guilford Green.

-In the spring, the Hartford Jewish Film Festival brings Jewish films from around the world to Hartford-area theatres.

-In the Southwest, the Jewish Arts & Film Festival of Fairfield County.

-In the Southeast, there's the International Jewish Film Festival of Eastern Connecticut.

-The Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center hosts retreats, Shabbatons, educational programs, holiday celebrations, and other events at their farm and facilities in the Falls Village section of Canaan.

-The grandly named Museum of Jewish Civilization is located in the Mortensen Library in the Harry Jack Gray Center at the University of Hartford in West Hartford.

-Lectures, exhibits, and events at universities, such as those at UCONN's Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life and the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale are often open to the public. 

-Longtime readers of this blog will probably be aware that my personal favorite Jewish sites in Connecticut are the small rural synagogues that once served the Jewish farming communities in the Eastern part of the state. For a Jewish-themed road trip through beautiful rural Eastern Connecticut, seek out United Brethren on Routes 85 and 66 in Hebron, Anshei Israel on Route 138 in Lisbon, Knesseth Israel on Pinney Street in Ellington, and Agudath Achim on Route 87 in Columbia. (For other assorted historic synagogues, Historic Buildings of Connecticut is a good place to look. Or click on my "Jews" category here or at the right side of this page.)


If you have another site or event where you'd send a visitor in search of Jewish Connecticut, please add it in the comments below!

We're Everywhere, Summer Edition

New London is Connecticut's second-smallest municipality. I lived in New London for something like five years. I write about Connecticut history. I write about Jewish stuff. I am fond of tiny, incongruous buildings. Add all that together, and you would not be crazy for assuming that I would have stumbled over this small historic synagogue near Ocean Beach Park. And yet, I had no idea it was there.

I knew that once upon a time, during New London's heyday as an upscale summer resort town, there had been a seasonal shul here for Jews who came to escape the heat of the cities. But I thought that was one of those old memories of a bygone New London, like when whaling ships came home laden with oil and their captains built mansions along the city's tree-lined streets. 

But then Dirk Langeveld, the former editor of New London Patch who sometimes tips me off to fabulously obscure Connecticut spots, told me the synagogue was still there. I Google Mapped it immediately, and when I saw it on my computer screen I knew I had to go find it the next time I was in southeastern Connecticut.

And there it stood, on a residential street I had remarkably never gotten lost on in all my years in New London.

Even if I had, I might have missed it. You have to get up pretty close to see the details, including the little sign on the door indicating that not only is Temple Israel still standing, it's also still functioning as a synagogue. A nice surprise after this find.

We're Everywhere, Part 5

Once there were thirteen active synagogues in Hartford; now there are none. But some of their buildings remain. This one, Ados Israel on Pearl Street, is my favorite.

The congregation was "organized in Hartford by Orthodox Eastern European Jews in 1884 as the "Association of Brothers, Children of Israel." It was the first Orthodox shul in the city. Members originally met on Pratt Street. In 1898 they moved to a large and distinctive building on Market Street, which was, like so many historic Hartford buildings, torn down in the early 1960s. At that time, Ados Israel moved to Pearl Street, into what had been the First Unitarian Congregational Church.

When the synagogue closed in 1986, the New York Times reported that "When the wrought-iron gates of the Pearl Street synagogue close for the last time, it will mark the first time since the mid-1800's that the city has been without a synagogue."

The building (which is on a really nice block) is for sale. So many buildings to save, so little time...

Nutmeg Poisoning

-If you live in the southern half of Connecticut, you might not have strong feelings about Route 44. But the road that runs from Salisbury to Putnam has as many stories as the Post Road, and the Hartford Courant's Dan Haar is walking the length of the road to tell them in a special series.

-My mom nagged me to read this Maureen Dowd review of Price of Fame: the Honorable Clare Booth Luce by Sylvia Jukes Morris. My knowledge of Luce pretty much began and ended with The Women, so it was news to me that Connecticut voted her into the House of Representatives in the 1940s. (The Fourth District, naturally.)

-File under: Connecticut shows up where you seriously are not expecting it. Catherine (Caty) Greene, wife of Nathanael Greene, happened to meet Eli Whitney in Georgia, where she helped him develop the cotton gin. (Also, anyone want to go to the Cumberland Island National Seashore with me?)

-A few more Instagram accounts I've been loving recently (to add to the ones mentioned here): @CTLove1, @DTNL_VISIONS, @connecticutgram, @lovehartford, @humansofhartford, @mariamk39, and @IG_Connecticut. (And as always, if you'd like to follow me, I'm @johnnakaplan.)

-Regular readers of this blog will probably have noticed that I have a weakness for the history of Jewish farming colonies in rural Connecticut. That's why I track down little synagogues in Coumbia, Ellington, Hebron, and Lisbon, and think about Jews and chickens when I'm in towns like Colchester.

If that sort of thing appeals to you, you might like what I wrote about the erstwhile Jewish community in Montville in the Jewish Daily Forward.

The Hardware City

I've noticed for a while now that Connecticut often comes up in contexts where I'm not expecting it. But I'm starting to think it's more than that, and Connecticut is practically inescapable. Take this meat grinder.

I write for the Jewish Daily Forward sometimes, and last week I was working on a piece for them about making gefilte fish for the first time. (Gefilte fish, if you have never had the pleasure misfortune experience of trying it, consists of several kinds of fish ground up and combined with other ingredients to make a sort of little fish dumpling.) To grind my fish I used one of two old grinders that once belonged to my grandmother.

These are serious, very well-made pieces of equipment that work just as well today as they did when my grandmother acquired them over 80 years ago in western Canada, where she moved from Odessa in what is now Ukraine.

And the grinders?

Oh yeah, they were made in New Britain.

What my grandmother would have thought when she read that place name on her kitchen tools, I can't imagine.

It must have seemed like a distant and incomprehensible land.

These sort of grinders are not rare - I found a bunch of them for sale on eBay, ranging from about $30 to $40 depending on the size, or possibly the condition.

Which indicates that L F & C (that's Landers, Frary, and Clark) made a whole lot of them, and they just never stop working.

The numerous manufacturers of New Britain, aka Hard Hittin' New Britain, aka the Hardware City, once produced, well, too many things to list. Partial list: levels and bolts and hinges and hooks, ball bearings and coffee pots and cake mixers, vacuum cleaners and buckles and pistols.

Today New Britain has a large Polish population, and is sometimes called New Britski. My friend Steve went there and encountered some residents who really don't like the Jews. Well, sorry/not sorry, racists of New Britain: I used some of the hardware that built your fine city's reputation to make gefilte fish.

On a meta-blogging note, this might be the first time I've categorized a post with the name of a town that I haven't been to. But I do intend to get to New Britain, and the other Hartford-area towns I've neglected so far, soon. And for anyone there thinking of messing with me, heed this warning: I have meat grinders, and they're heavy, and they can be swung around by the handle. Hard Hittin' New Britain, indeed.

We're Everywhere, Part 4

Not all the little buildings in Columbia are white. This one, as you see, is painted red, albeit it an unassuming red. In fact this structure, in a residential neighborhood on what passes in Columbia for a major road, is even more unassuming in real life than it is in this picture. Maybe you're thinking why should it be assuming, it's just a house? But look closely.

It's really another rural synagogue. (Previously.) This one is called Agudath Achim, and of all the synagogues I've posted about so far it was the hardest to find information about. But it seems the congregation was founded in 1921 and a shul first built at this location in 1927. The building pictured here was built in 1952.

In searching for this I found this picture of the Kaplan family (no, not related) of Columbia, c. 1929. I love this picture. I miss the days when you could rock a schmatte and ugly shoes and still get a dapper man in suspenders and a little cap.

Anyway, the exciting news in Connecticut Jewish history recently has been this discovery in Chesterfield. Which I'll get to eventually, I'm sure. But this Columbia synagogue has been on my list for so long that I was really excited to finally get out there and find it.

Oh, and I guess it would be a bit much, but how much do I want a house with a Magen David railing now?

Woodmont On The Sound

The first time I became aware of the existence of Woodmont was when I passed through on this drive. I mostly ignored it then, in favor of another section of Milford, Devon. Soon after that I read about Woodmont's Jewish history, and that, plus its tucked-away beachy look, kept it in the back of my mind until now.

Woodmont is a borough, covering only one square mile, .3 square miles of that on land. This is the Borough Hall.

The atmosphere of the small beach reminded me very much of Point No Point, in Stratford.

Originally a summer resort, Woodmont is now one of those rare places in western Connecticut where the waterfront is not reserved for ginormous houses. The beaches are public.

And though the area near the shore has plenty of free parking, it also has what struck me as an unusual number of signs.

Including many of these mysterious F --> S ones.

It was very cold when I decided, after passing the exit about 9 million times, that I would finally just get off the highway and go to Woodmont. The sky was an ominous pale grey, and tiny snowflakes were swirling.

When I arrived, two people were sitting on this bench. I don't know how long they'd been there. But just before I walked by, they decided they'd had enough of this Connecticut spring day, and left. And then the beach, and all of Woodmont, was - for a few minutes - mine.

Trendy Pickles and Onion Domes

It isn't that Connecticut never disappoints. Sometimes it does. Example: I went to see the new SoNo Marketplace, a sort of indoor street fair with a gorgeous website and a fervent belief in its own European-ness, and...eh. The market itself was alright, aside from not really being in SoNo. (South Norwalk, yes, technically. SoNo, as in, can I walk there from Caffeine? Haha, no.)

I'm sure if it had not been advertised at all and I'd simply stumbled across it, I would have thought it a neat find. If I had lots of extra cash, I bet it would be a nice place to shop for little gifts. And it's certainly a good thing for the vendors, who can presumably rent a stall for much less than they could ever hope to rent a storefront.

But I'm not rich, and I'm not a hipster. And this place is all about rich hipsters who want to say they braved the construction-site-slash-semi-industrial-zone with the confusing entrance near the Transit District building in order to buy a trendy pickle and a hand-made soap you could probably eat. And if I was ever into that kind of thing, I got over it about 20 years ago. (Meaning 16-year-olds will loooove this place.)

BUT. But but but. On the way there I passed the building above. I thought it might be a Russian Orthodox church. But the sign in front said Canaan Institutional Baptist Church. I don't associate Baptists with onion domes, so I looked it up, and found it was originally a synagogue, built in 1906. It's the only Moorish Revival* shul in Connecticut, as it happens. And it's just chillin' there in Norwalk, with its onion domes. Not trying, as SoNo is wont to do. Simply sitting there.

So Connecticut does disappoint, but then - always, so far - it gives you something else to make up for it.

*And just look at some other, slightly earlier Moorish Revival synagogues to see how totally Connecticut-ized this one is.

Happy Hanukkah!

Not Another One

The schoolhouses, they won't leave me alone. I started out just loving them, and I still do, but they're becoming oppressive. I'm afraid if I keep posting them I'll bore people, but on the other hand they won't let me stop.

I think I parked here, beside Madison's Green, so I could check my email. Or maybe it was something else entirely unrelated to schoolhouses. And then I looked up and there it was, all fresh and white and bell-towered. It seemed to say to me, "You've been to Madison how many times? You've written about Madison how many times? You're totally aware of the Town Hall and the Congregational Church, but you never noticed there was a schoolhouse right in between them?! You suck." (I guess when I see schools, I think of someone berating me.)

This one is called Lee Academy, and it was built in 1821. The Madison Historical Society has a nice overview of the history of the school and its namesake.

Monday is the first day of Rosh Hashanah, so I will be assiduously observing the holiday taking the opportunity to slack off and trying not to eat all the baked goods, and I'll be back on Wednesday with the next installment of this. Happy New Year (even if you're not Jewish, you can still use another New Year, right?) And if by chance anyone reads this blog for the little rural synagogues, you might be interested in the stuff I've been writing over at the sisterhood blog of the Jewish Daily Forward.

Peace, Love and West Hartford

Most of what gets posted on this blog falls into the category of things unique to Connecticut, or at least things sort of unique to Connecticut - things that strike me as unlikely to be replicated somewhere else.

And when I saw this, planted in the grass in front of a church beside the Noah Webster Library in West Hartford, I thought it definitely fit into that rubric. Where else but a town like this, I thought, would people honestly believe a piece of wood with a little message printed on it could change the natural, millenia-old tendency of humanity to fight amongst itself? (And I say "a town like this" with eye-rolling affection, having grown up in a place that prides itself on earnestly protesting various world conflicts, despite the fact that its entire experience of war consists of having been a jumping-off point for William Tryon.) So upon seeing this thing I a) burst out laughing in the middle of the sidewalk, then b) walked across the grass to take a picture of it.

But I was wrong! Completely, utterly wrong! This thing is a Peace Pole, and a crazy number of them (possibly 200,000!) have been erected in 180 countries around the world. The concept originated in Japan in the 1950s. They come in four, six, or eight-sided versions, with the same plea for peace written in a different language on each side. This one was of the four-sided variety, and the other languages were Spanish, Hebrew (Everywhere!) and Hindi. I'm not sure how I've escaped seeing one until this late date, and I'm pretty sure I will now see them all over. (But don't worry, I won't chronicle them here.)

After I walked away, I noticed that my little outburst of hilarity had drawn two other people over to examine the pole. They were reading it aloud, probably wondering what could possibly be so interesting or amusing. As it turns out, not much - the only funny part is I now spend so much time thinking about Connecticut that I assumed something universal must have been entirely home-grown.

We're Everywhere, Part 3

First there was Lisbon and Hebron. This is Ellington, which, simply from the sound of it, seems even less likely to have any Jews. And yet! Here is Knesseth Israel, built in 1913. The congregation itself was established eight years earlier, and the first Jewish immigrant farmers, who came to start new lives working an unknown land, arrived several years before that.

Two thoughts distracted me as I stood looking at this building. The first was that, in much of the world, you can't take pictures of synagogues; or at least you can't just park right beside them, walk up to the front door unannounced, and start photographing away. This shul in Ellington (like its counterparts in Lisbon and Hebron) apparently has no such security concerns. Still, whenever I take pictures of synagogues I'm at least aware of the possibility that someone might come out and politely demand to know what I'm doing there. And when no one comes out, that feeling morphs from the anticipation of getting in trouble into something less immediate but deeper: am I - are we - safe here?

The other thought was, "OH HI I'M A TOURIST!" In small towns where everyone knows everyone, or seems to, you know you're going to stick out if you stand on the very busy road where residential neighborhood blends into farmland taking pictures of historic buildings. Since I do this a lot, I pretty much always feel like one of those people who walk very slowly, gaping, through Times Square.

So I was standing there, obviously not from Ellington and therefore obviously drawing attention to myself and this unprotected building. But then I thought, it's fine, because the Baron De Hirsch Fund intended me to be here. And the Jewish Agricultural Society intended me to be here. And the horribly named and kind of questionably motivated Industrial Removal Office intended me to be here. Well, not precisely me, and not exactly in this way. I don't think anyone ever intended for Jews to be saved from the perils of Eastern Europe so that they could be free to blog. But suddenly I didn't care that the people in the cars rushing from farm to town were watching me.

The New Year Of the Trees

When you think about Tu B'Shvat, the New Year of the Trees, which started last night at sundown, these are not the trees you think of. These are New England trees, birches and hollies and maples and cherries and oaks, bare trees and fruitless trees and funny twisted winter trees that cling at rakish angles to the banks of ponds. These trees have the quiet power that all nature in Connecticut has, the kind I stared past for years but never saw. You can only see it if you search for it, if you take time. It's not the ripe beauty and bounty of olives and pomegranates, but grass like dry wheat, barks like peeling wallpaper, trunks the same color as their shadows. Surrounded not by multicolored desert or lush green leaves and plunging waterfalls, but by stone walls and great ancient boulders. These are tough trees that will have their New Year - their Spring - one day. But not yet.

(All photos taken at Connecticut College Arboretum.)

We're Everywhere, Part 2

Yesterday's post reminded me of what's possibly one of my favorite Connecticut "discoveries" - this 1936 synagogue in Lisbon. I first saw it about three years ago, some time after I moved back here. Somehow knowing that it was there was comforting. In a strange way it made me feel better about the decision to live here, like I wasn't entirely crazy to decide to come to Connecticut, or if I was, at least a bunch of other people with similar backgrounds had been just as crazy, once upon a time.

Plus it's just cute as all get out. You almost want to pat it on the head or something.

We're Everywhere!

It's always nice, when driving through rural America, to unexpectedly come across evidence of Jews. I actually knew of this synagogue in Hebron before, but I'd completely forgotten about it and I certainly wasn't expecting to see it there, looking much older than its 71 years. (It might be the oldest-looking Art Deco building I've ever seen. They're usually so...shiny.)

The man who built it was not a chicken farmer, but a grain mill owner (among other things, but that goes without saying; with all Jews of the early 20th century, and other times, there are always other things.) And when I say he built it, that doesn't mean what it usually means, that he merely paid for or commissioned it. It means he built it, including collecting the bricks and glass.

And as far as I can tell, it appears to still be a functioning synagogue, which also surprised me. You know you spend too much time in New England when you're surprised to find actual Jews in a place called Hebron.

Colchester

I hadn't come to Colchester looking for things from 1702.


But I couldn't resist this house, in the Colchester Village Historic District.


Isn't it so cute? It's the Nathaniel Foote House, the oldest house in Colchester.


This is Merchants' Row - a bit closer to what I'd come for. A while ago I wrote about the amusing confluence of Jews and chickens in early 20th century Connecticut. Colchester, of all places, came up so often in the accounts of those Jewish immigrant farmers that it made me want to go there. When I finally got around to going, a few weeks ago, I realized I'd been there before. Not the time I came on purpose, to write about vineyards. But several years ago, when I felt compelled to stop, on the way from somewhere to somewhere else, at the Colchester Starbucks. I didn't know enough at the time to consider the possibility that I was drawn here by an invisible connection to those other, earlier Connecticut Jews. I mean, no matter the time or place or reason, there's always something slightly disorienting about being a Jew in Connecticut. (I think it's why Joe Lieberman always looks like he has a headache.)


Anyway, I didn't see anything particularly obviously Jewish in my short time in Colchester. Maybe because nothing remains, but probably because I wasn't searching properly. Though just around the corner from the buildings above, I spotted this. A reference - intentional or not - to the town's agricultural heritage, painted on a wall. So no Jews, and no chickens. But I was happy to settle for cows.