Appleton (Outagamie County)

One of two outlying Wisconsin cities (with La Crosse) to have had a robust German Jewish community followed by an active Russian Jewish community, Appleton also lays claim to two of the state's most famous and influential Jews.

Harry Houdini (1874-1926) was the son of the community's first rabbi, Hungarian-born Mayer Samuel Weiss. The Houdinis lived in Appleton from 1874 until 1883, when the rabbi was fired because he couldn't preach in English. Houdini, born Ehrich Weiss in Budapest, often claimed Appleton as his birthplace.

Author/playwright Edna Ferber lived in this Appleton house as a girl in the late 19th century.

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Author/playwright Edna Ferber lived in this Appleton house as a girl in the late 19th century.

Novelist and playwright Edna Ferber (1885-1968) came at age 12 to Appleton with her family. Her father owned the My Store general store. Ferber began her writing career as a teenage newspaper reporter at the Appleton Crescent. (Her 1904 interview with a visiting Houdini is posted on the web site http://www.apl.org.

During a stint at the Milwaukee Journal, Ferber collapsed from exhaustion. She returned to Appleton and wrote her first short story and first novel. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1924 for the novel "So Big." Her 1939 autobiography "My Peculiar Treasure" recalls Appleton's prominent German Jewish community and her experiences in the choir of Temple Zion.

Both of these renowned Appletonians are subjects of exhibits at the Outagamie Museum, 330 E. College Ave., in downtown Appleton.

The former Temple Zion, shown here in July 2005, is being restored by the current owner, Wahl Organbuilders.

Temple Zion, 320 N. Durkee was the synagogue of Appleton's German Jewish - and ultimately Reform Jewish - community. Opened in 1883 with a small school building next door, the synagogue served the community through the 1920s. The building is being restored to its original condition and colors by the current owner, Wahl Organbuilders.

Congregants included David Hammel, a successful horse dealer who served as mayor from 1900-1904 and 1906-1907.

Jewish immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe began to arrive in the 1880s. Orthodox services were held in homes from 1890-1909. Worshipers organized Moses Montefiore Congregation in 1903 and built a combined schoolhouse and synagogue in 1909.

In 1917, the Jewish women of Appleton, Neenah, Kaukauna and smaller communities formed the Montefiore Ladies Aid Society, which at first provided relief funds locally and nationally. The women also helped with construction and decorating costs of the synagogue and parsonage.

The growing Orthodox congregation built a new synagogue in 1922 and 1923. The congregation organized a cemetery in 1926. The first bat mitzvah came in 1953. Men and women were allowed to sit together in 1959. Moses Montefiore joined the Conservative movement in 1965, and built a larger synagogue that opened in 1969. The Ladies Aid Society renamed itself the Montefiore Sisterhood in 1968.

Other groups that used the synagogue were: Aleph Zadek Aleph, B'nai B'rith, B'nai B'rith Girls, B'nai B'rith Youth Organziation, Hadassah, Junior Hadassah, Rabbi Glick's study and social Club, young Girls literary and Social Club, Young Judaea and the Zionist Organization of America.

"American Jewish Year Book" population figures estimated 140 Appleton Jews in 1920, a peak of 665 in 1971 and 100 in 2001.

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.