Green Bay (Brown County)
Green Bay, located where the Fox River empties into Lake Michigan, is the site of the first European visit to what would become Wisconsin. French explorer Jean Nicolet came there in 1634, and he and his colleagues named the area La Baie Verte, because of the bay's greenish water. The British translated this to give the area its English name. The French established a trading post, then a Jesuit mission in 1671, then a fort in 1717.
The area became British after the last French and Indian War (1763), and was surrendered to the United States after the Revolutionary War (1783). The U.S. government built Fort Howard near the site in 1816. Green Bay was incorporated as a city in 1854 and also then became the seat of Brown County. Fort Howard became a borough in 1856 and a city in 1873. Green Bay absorbed Fort Howard in 1895.
Given its position as Wisconsin's first site visited by a European, it seems appropriate that its first Jewish visitor was also the first known Jew ever to see what would become Wisconsin. He was British fur trader Jacob Franks, who arrived from Toronto in 1792.
After success as a merchant, he returned to Canada, leaving his business to his nephew, John Lawe. Lawe was the first permanent Jewish-born settler in Wisconsin. He became an associate judge of the first court in the territory and a member of the first territorial legislature. A street in the city of Green Bay is named after him.
In addition, according to a document of as yet undetermined provenance on the Jewish community's history, the Ornstein family in modern Green Bay reported that one of its ancestors was an early Jewish settler, one Samuel Stern. According to the document, Stern worked in Green Bay for John Jacob Astor's American Fur Trading Company in 1814, when Wisconsin was still part of the Michigan Territory.
Nevertheless, few other Jews settled in Green Bay for a long time. According to the community's now deceased "unofficial historian" Marian Miller (Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, Dec. 7, 2001), the tiny number of the German Jewish immigrants of the mid-1800s who came to the Fox River region focused on Appleton at first, so that its Jewish community organized such institutions as a synagogue and a cemetery before Green Bay's Jews did.
Even so, at least one German Jewish individual attained considerable economic and political success in the area. Clothing merchant Michael Newald lived and worked in Fort Howard, and he was elected mayor of that city in 1879.
Not until eastern European Jews began to arrive after 1880 did Green Bay Jewry begin to organize. According to the unknown-origin-document, possibly the first Jew from that area to come to Green Bay was Aaron Rosenberg. He fled Russia in 1885 with his oldest son, Jacob. In 1888, he sent for his wife, Blume, to join him in Green Bay. Their home became a boarding house for Jewish peddlers.
Blume sent back to Russia for members of her family, until her ten brothers and sisters and their parents, Rasha and Yehuda Miller, all lived in Green Bay.
The document states that the first Jewish religious service held in Green Bay was the bar mitzvah ceremony of Jacob Rosenberg, son of Blume and Aaron, held in the Rosenbergs' house. Then in 1898, Louis Baum, son of John and Fanny Baum, died of injuries suffered in a football game, according to the document. The nearest Jewish cemetery then was in Appleton, and supposedly during the journey there, some Green Bay Jews decided it was time to organize their own community and synagogue.
On Sept. 15, 1898, eight men filed "articles of organization" for Congregation Cnesses Israel (Assembly of Israel). Some years later, Jacob Rosenberg used funds raised by the Ladies Aid Society to purchase an acre of land from the Fort Howard Cemetery Association for use as a Jewish cemetery.
After some years of fundraising, the cornerstone for a synagogue building was set on August 25, 1903. The first services were held there on Feb. 27, 1904; a Hebrew school had its first meeting two days later. The synagogue was formally dedicated on Sept. 4, 1904, and the ceremony included a speech by then-Mayor John E. Minahan. The synagogue began as Orthodox, but changed orientation to Conservative around 1950, according to The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle (Dec. 7, 2001).
Presiding over religious life at first was Azriel Kanter. He was born Azriel Duchin and was a Hebrew scholar in Russia. Fearing he would be a target of persecution, he changed his name to his wife's maiden name, and thereby was able to escape with his family to the U.S. He served Green Bay Jews as kosher butcher, cantor, and mohel for many years.
Green Bay Jews chartered a B'nai B'rith lodge in 1906. In addition, according to "The Jewish Community Blue Book of Milwaukee and Wisconsin," published by The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle in 1924, Green Bay Jews had a Zionist organization that was "one of the strongest in the state."
Of course, Green Bay's lasting claim to national fame is as the home of the Green Bay Packers National Football League professional team. Indeed, Green Bay is the only city of its size to have such a team, and the Packers are the last survivor of the "small town teams" common in the NFL in the 1920s and 1930s.
But while Earl "Curley" Lambeau is usually credited as the team's founder, Larry D. Names, author of "The History of the Green Bay Packers: The Lambeau Years" (1987) uncovered evidence that Jewish cattle dealer Nathan Abrams, who also was Lambeau's friend, actually founded in 1918 the city team that evolved in 1921 into the Green Bay Packers (Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, Jan. 24, 1997). Abrams also played for the team from 1918-21, and rescued the team from debt in 1922.
Nathan Abrams wasn't the only Jew associated with the Packers, according to the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle article. Howard Levitas was a team assistant trainer and board member. Charlie Sauber played for the early teams. Isadore Abrams, Nate's brother, was a timekeeper. Milwaukeean Charles "Buckets" Goldenberg was a star player from 1933-45.
Congregation Cnesses Israel constructed a new synagogue building-community center and dedicated it in 1951. According to a 2001 estimate reported in The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle (Dec. 7, 2001), the congregation has about 125 affiliated families, some living in Door County and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. That same article contained an estimate that some 50 percent of the synagogue's members are intermarried. However, according to the synagogue's present spiritual leader, Rabbi Shaina Bacharach, membership is now about 85 families, and the 50 percent intermarriage figure is not accurate. Some community members tried to start a Reform synagogue, Congregation Mishpachat Shalom (Family of Peace), in the late 1990s, but it folded after about two years, according to the Chronicle article.
The synagogue has had some remarkable individuals as rabbis. They included:
Rabbi Leonard J. Goldstein, ordained in 1948, presided over the construction of the current building. His later posts included president for administration at the American College in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Isaac Van der Walde was born and ordained in Germany and fled to the U.S. after the Kristallnacht anti-Semitic riots of 1938. He became spiritual leader of Cnesses Israel in 1960 and stayed there until he retired.
Rabbi Sidney A. Vineburg served the congregation from 1988 to 2002. In addition to being a spiritual leader, he also obtained a private investigator's license (Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, Aug. 13, 1999); and he ran for a state assembly seat in 2002, but lost. He still lives in the community.
His successor is Rabbi Shaina Bacharach, Wisconsin's first Conservative woman rabbi, who took the post in 2003.
All of these articles are always open to the addition of new information. Readers who have more data about, or documents or artifacts from, these communities are welcome to contact Leon Cohen at the Wisconsin Society for Jewish Learning at 414-963-4135 or lcohen@wsjl.org.