Jews

There is an extensive literature on Jews in Connecticut and, fortunately, a good recent bibliography, A. S. W. Rosenbach's An American Jewish Bibliography: Being a List of Books and Pamphlets by Jews or Relating to Them (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia for the Rosenbach Museum & Library, 1981). "This work covers material printed in the United States from the establishment of the press in the colonies (1640) until 1850." Arranged chronologically. There are also good bibliographies in Gould and Gordon, cited below.

Antonovsky, Aaron. "Aspects of New Haven Jewry: A Sociological Study." YIVO Annual 10(1953).

Becker, Sandra Hartwell, and Pearson, Ralph L. "The Jewish Community of Hartford, Connecticut, 1880-1929." American Jewish Archives 31(November, 1979)2:184-214. This sophisticated piece attempts to deal with Jewish exclusiveness in Hartford. The authors conclude that, in view of Yankee exclusiveness, the Jews made the right decision--where they had a choice--to form their own organizations. "Hartford Jews in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, in addition to the conflict of national loyalties among themselves, confronted not only the tension of integration and separatism within their own community, but also that of the larger society which demanded Americanization while it accepted them only reluctantly, if at all, as equal members of the community." (p. 214)

Daline, David G. and Jonathan Rosenbaum. Making a Life, Building a Community; A History of the Jews of Hartford, New York, Holmes and Meier, 1997.

Feinsilver, Alexander, and Feinsilver, Lillian. "Colchester's Yankee Jews: After Half a Century." Commentary 20(July, 1955)1:64-70. The Baron de Hirsch Fund settled Jews from Russia in Colchester in the 1890s, but especially in the period 1910-1925. In 1955 Jews still made up 40 percent of all farmers in Colchester; there were sixty Jewish full-time farmers there.

Gordon, Morton L. "The History of the Jewish Farmer in Eastern Connecticut." Doctoral dissertation, Yeshiva University, 1974. "This thesis covers the history of Jewish farming in general and that of the Jewish farmer in eastern Connecticut in particular. It begins with a brief synoptic perusal of the Jew as a farmer starting with biblical times and shows how agriculture was closely woven into the life of the Jew down through the years.

  "The most dramatic story of the Jewish farming community in the United States is how it helped to rehabilitate the Jewish refugee farmers who fled Hitler's holocaust. This study dwells at length on the stories of the refugees and Displaced Persons." (from the abstract) Excellent bibliography.

Gould, Sally Innis. The Jews: Their Origins, In America, In Connecticut. Storrs: University of Connecticut, 1977. One in the Multiethnic Culture Series of curriculum guides for secondary-school use. This one has a good deal of useful information and a good bibliography.

Hühner, Leon. "The Jews of New England (Other than Rhode Island) Prior to 1800." Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society 11(1903):76-99. The Connecticut section is pp· 86-95. The first Jew appeared here in 1650; the first significant group developed in Hartford in 1661; and the first synagog was built in 1847. Heavily footnoted, with citations.

Koenig, Samuel. "The Jews of Easterntown: The Genesis of Jewish Community Life in an American Town." Jewish Review 5(January-December, 1947). Much of this material is drawn from a superb study of Stamford Jews made by Koenig in 1940. That study, under WPA auspices, "An American Jewish Community: Its Social and Economic Structure," exists only in typescript. It is full of interesting and useful graphs and charts. There is a copy at the State Library.

Lindenthal, Jacob L. "Early History of the Jews of Middletown, Connecticut." Doctoral dissertation, Yeshiva University, 1973.

Marcus, Jacob R. "Light on Early Connecticut Jewry (1659-1900)." American Jewish Archives 1(January, 1949)2:1 52· "There is no intention ... to attempt to write a definitive study of colonial and early Connecticut Jewry to about 1800. This essay does attempt to bring the early history of this colony and state up to date on the basis of published and manuscript sources...." (p. 6) A sound piece with interesting appendices. There were very few Jews in Connecticut before the nineteenth century, numbering in the scores rather than the hundreds, so that the approach here is to focus on the stories of individual Jews. Excellent notes and bibliography.

Reznikoff, Charles. "New Haven: The Jewish Community, A Portrait Sketch." Commentary 4(November, 1947)5. Reznikoff is a poet and novelist. This is a thirteen-page impressionistic narrative sweep from 1763-to 1947. It is interesting and not altogether useless to the historian.

Sarna, Jonathan D., ed. Jews in New Haven. New Haven: Jewish Historical Society of New Haven, 1978. A collection of essays, several on historical topics, most dealing with contemporary matters. This, the first publication of the Jewish Historical Association of New Haven, deals largely with archival sources for the study of New Haven Jews.

Silverman, Morris. The Hartford Jews. Hartford: Connecticut Historical Society, 1970. Part I of this useful work, a hundred-page historical account to 1955 of Hartford's Jews, was originally published as a ten-part series in the Courant. Part II is a Who's Who of Hartford Jewry over a period of 300 years. Part III is a collection of documents and lists, such as a roster of Jewish veterans of World Wars I and II; an index to city directory listings, 1849-1970; and the constitution and by-laws of Beth Israel in 1906.

Sulman, Esther A Goodly Heritage: The Story of the Jewish Community in New London. New London: n. pub., 1957. Fifty citations of sources: a bibliography of twenty-three items. Based on newspapers, vital statistics, and published materials. Contrast the method and optimistic conclusions with those of Pecker and Pearson above.