New Cemetery Resources!

We've just updated our records of Jewish Cemeteries in Maryland!

Cemetery burial listings are now available on-line for Rosedale, Beth Jacob-Finksburg Cemetery, Beth Tfiloh Cemetery, Mikro Kodesh-Beth Israel, Other East Baltimore cemeteries, West Baltimore cemeteries, Chevrah Ahavas Chesed, Cumberland Eastview Cemetery, and Frederick, Maryland!

Our family history collection at the Robert L. Weinberg Family History Center contains many additional primary source materials, including:

• Baltimore Jewish Times obituaries, 1919 to present
• Jack Lewis Funeral Home records, 1924-1939, 1956-1965
• Published and unpublished genealogies of Maryland Jewish families
• Baltimore City directories on microfiche/film, 1752-1930 (some years missing)
• U.S. manuscript census, Baltimore and other parts of Maryland, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930
• Passenger index for ships that arrived in the Port of Baltimore, 1820-1952
• Passenger manifests of ships that arrived in the Port of Baltimore, 1840-1920
• Memoirs of Jewish Life in Maryland and Europe
• Records of Jewish cemeteries in the Greater Baltimore area
• Circumcision (1836-1870, 1940-1967), midwife (1892-1919) , and marriage (1850-1944) records of individual Baltimore-area mohels, midwives and rabbis
• H.I.A.S. arrival records (1911-1914, 1938-1953)
• Historical Database of Baltimore Religious Personnel
• Yizkor (Memorial) books of East European towns
• Hebrew Orphan Asylum records, 1873-1917
• Registries of Maryland military personnel in World Wars I and II

Additional resources include: archival collections from several Baltimore-area synagogues; records of local Jewish agencies, institutions and businesses; personal papers of prominent individuals; profiles of individuals and families in A History of the Jews of Baltimore (Blum, 1910) and other locally-published books; biographical, institutional and subject files related to Baltimore and Maryland Jewry; and oral histories of Maryland Jews. Periodicals that offer information on Maryland Jewry include the Baltimore Jewish Times (1919 to present), Jewish Comment (1895-1918), Jewish Chronicle (1875), Jewish Exponent (1887-1888), Sinai (1856-1860), Generations (1978 to present) and American Jewish Year Book (1899-1985). We also maintain a photograph collection related to immigration, Jewish life in Maryland, and the many institutions of Baltimore Jewry.

Our library contains publications on Jewish genealogy, including Shtetl Finder, Where Once We Walked, A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames From the Russian Empire, Jewish Roots in Poland, and the periodical Avotaynu. We also maintain a collection of publications and newsletters from genealogical societies across the nation.

To find out more, please contact our historian, Deb Weiner, at 410.732.6400 x224 or dweiner@jewishmuseummd.org.

Program Spotlight: Kesher Kit: The Maryland - Israel Connection!

Are you an educator whose class is studying Israel? The Kesher Kit may be perfect for you!

Inspired by the 60th anniversary celebration of the founding of Israel and along with the previous exhibition Dateline Israel: New Photography and Video Art, the JMM created Kesher Kit: The Maryland-Israel Connection, an educational resource that explores connections that Jewish Marylanders have with Israel, past and present.

Each kit includes innovative lesson plans, biographical sketches, timelines, glossaries, and reproductions of archival documents historical photographs, and images from the Dateline: Israel exhibition. (Dateline: Israel was curated by the Jewish Museum in New York.)

The main objective of the kit is to provide engaging and innovative lessons so students can understand the lives of Maryland Zionists during the early years of the establishment of the Jewish state. The lessons enable students to develop critical thinking skills as they examine and analyze contemporary photographs documenting current life in Israel. The lessons are also designed to strengthen the student's own connection to the State of Israel.

Five Marylanders have been included in the resource kit because of their contributions to the establishment of the State of Israel. Included are Henrietta Szold (this lesson is intended for elementary school students but can be modified for high-school students), Rudolf Sonneborn, Dr. Herman Seidel, Mendes I. Cohen and Jacob Blaustein. All of these colorful figures have wonderful stories and each has made a significant contribution to the development of the State of Israel.

LSS Fact of the Day

The changing sanctuary of the Lloyd Street Synagogue.

We have no pictures of the sanctuary of the Lloyd Street Synagogue until 1958, but the building changed many times in the 113 years before that. The congregations responded to changing fashion by decorating and redecorating, and they responded to changing needs by expanding and rearranging. At the dedication in 1845 a reporter for the Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, described the building in this way:

“The main floor of the church it fitted up with pews, and has a gallery extending on three sides of the church appropriated entirely to the female portion of the congregation. The eastern wall has a round window filled with stained glass directly over the ark [cabinet containing the Torah]. The ark… is a semi-circular temple with Corinthian pillars and ribs, and carved ornaments on the roof and the tables of the law in front. The doors are enriched with carvings and slide on rollers around the curve of the sides. On each side of the ark is an elevated platform with rich finished arm chairs for the President and Vice President of the congregation. In front is the reading desk and seats for the readers, of solid walnut. The window over the ark bears [sic.] the shape of a double star, of the most beautiful variegated colors, illustrating the shield of David, in the centre of which is a representation of a Greecian [sic.] Corinthian Acanthus. The spaces between the points of the star are filled with Grecian leaves, the whole surrounded by a circle to correspond….The windows are tinted of a golden color and diffuse a warm glow of light in the interior. The interior wood work is painted of a warm drab color, and the walls and ceilings when dry are going to be finished in fresco.” (Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, September, 1845)

The Occident also described the new synagogue in detail, admiring its beauty and only finding fault with the fact that the smallness of the space didn’t allow for a central bimah (raised platform from which the service is conducted).

LSS Fact of the Day

1845 - After fifteen years of moving between rented rooms, the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation decided to build its own synagogue. The structure became the first synagogue in the state of Maryland. The congregation hired Robert Cary Long, Jr., a prominent Baltimore architect, who created a Greek revival style building. In September, the new synagogue was consecrated.

From the Baltimore Sun, September 27, 1845

“Agreeably to announcement, the new synagogue erected by the Hebrew congregation of Baltimore, was yesterday afternoon dedicated to the service of the Most High. The building was crowded in all its parts, and among the audience we noticed the Rev. Dr. Johns, Rev. Wm. Hamilton, Rev. Mr. Purvance, and other ministers of Christian churches. There were present, the Rev. Mr. Rice, Chief Rabbi in the U. States, the Rev. Mr. Isaacs, of New York, the Rev. Mr. Leeser, of Philadelphia, and the Rev. Mr. Ansell, of this city. About 4 o’clock the lamps in the church were lit, and the ceremonies of consecration commenced by the opening of the Ark, from which the five books of Moses were taken, and carried by five persons through the centre aisle to the front door and back again to the reader’s desk or altar, prayers in Hebrew being chaunted in the meantime by the congregation, led by Mr. Ansell. They then moved round the desk a number of times, still chaunting [sic], when the sacred archives were deposited in the Ark. Mr. Ansell then read a prayer in English, in which the blessing of Heaven was invoked upon the President of the U. states, the Executives of the State and city, &c. &c.

“The Rev. Mr. Leeser then rose and delivered a lengthy address from a portion of Scripture commencing with, 'And not to you alone do I make this covenant,' &c. We cannot pretend to follow the Reverend gentleman in his discourse. He spoke of the covenant given by God to the fathers in Israel, which had been handed down; the law, although called the law of Moses, was the law of God, and Moses but the means used to deliver the law to mankind – in it God speaks, not Moses. He gave a history of the Jews, their persecutions, &c., and exalted that the law was still preserved, and alluded to the preservation of the law as one evidence of their being peculiarly under the keeping of God; Israel has been ever true, will be ever true, to follow their God – the one God. The brethren present, by raising this structure, had entered into the covenant anew. They had no new mode pointed out to them, but faith in the law and obedience were still the means to be used for propitiating the mercy of God. The address, of which the above is the merest sketch, was an eloquent one, and was listened to with the most profound attention.

“The Rev. Mr. Isaacs next followed in an able discourse from the text, 'How awful is this place; this is no other than the house of God; the gate of Heaven.' The general object of this discourse was to demonstrate that the church just erected was God’s house – a miniature temple erected to his service. The address was quite a lengthy one, and at the conclusion, he made an appropriate prayer. Prayers were then chaunted [sic], in Hebrew, led by the Rev. Mr. Ansell, and the congregation was dismissed. And thus has been dedicated, the first synagogue ever built in Maryland. We are requested to state that the services will be continued as usual this morning; and at ten o’clock a lecture in English, will be delivered by the Rev. Mr. Isaacs. Tickets of admission will not be required.”

*Please note that "Rev." does not indictae that a person was of Christian faith but a title for someone who was deemed to deserve respect. In this case, "awful" is something full of awe, not something horrible. Additionally, spelling and grammar have not been edited.