It was the evening of Feb. 2, 1943, and the U.S.A.T. Dorchester was crowded to capacity, carrying 902 service men, merchant seamen and civilian workers when the torpedoes struck. As the ship was sinking in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic, there were not enough life jackets to go around. Four chaplains, two Protestant, one Catholic and one Jewish took their own life jackets off and gave them to the men. The chaplains were last seen standing arm in arm, in prayer, as Americans before God
Commodore Uriah P. Levy Jewish Chapel, U.S. Naval Academy
Capt. William Byrne Jr., Jerry Klinger -JASHP, Vice Admiral William Miller, Chaplain LCDR Seth Phillips
Dedication Arlington National Cemetery, 10/25/2011
B’er Chayim (Well of Life) Congregation Dedicated March 2, 1867
B’er Chayim (Well of Life) Congregation Dedicated March 2, 1867
Jewish citizenry in Cumberland can be documented back to 1816. By 1853 twelve Jewish families had taken residence in this growing city of 6150 people. It was this small group which applied to the Maryland General Assembly for an Act incorporating the B’er Chayim (Well of Life) Congregation on May 23, 1853. Steps were taken in 1865 to acquire a site for the temple and by 1866 the temple’s construction was completed at the corner of South Center and Union Streets at a cost of $ 7,427.02. The synagogue was dedicated on March 2, 1867. Weekly dues of 25 cents, offerings, and help from other communities paid the construction cost. B’er Chayim was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. It is the oldest continuously operating synagogue building in the State of Maryland, the sixth oldest Reform Congregation in America and the tenth oldest synagogue in country. Erected 2017 by B’er Chayim Congregation, Historic Preservation Commission City of Cumberland, Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.
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Thomas Kennedy
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Thomas Kennedy and the Jew Bill
Thomas Kennedy, (1776-1832), author of the "Jew Bill", had never met a Jew in his life; Yet, he began a bitter eight year struggle that culminated in 1826 with the Maryland constitutional changes that freed Jewish citizens of the "Free State" from political discrimination. Kennedy, elected from Washington County, was a Jeffersonian Republican. He took to heart the ideas of equality, freedom and human rights as the concepts were being evolved and applied in the young American Republic. Discrimination and political dissenfranchisement in the Maryland Constitution were vestigal wrongs that had carried over from Maryland's early colonial anti-Catholic history. Kennedy set his goal, from the beginning of his public life, to correct the injustice against all Marylanders.
A joint effort of JASHP and the Maryland Historical Trust, the interpretive marker is located along Rt. 65 in Hagerstown, next to Rose Hill Cemetery.
The marker text:
THOMAS KENNEDY (1776-1832)
The Maryland Consititution of 1818 maintained religious test requirements the effectively prohibited Jews from being elected to State office. Kennedy, a Scottish Presbyterian immigrant, was elected in 1817 from Washington County. Kennedy believed religious discrimination was wrong. He began a bitter eight year struggle culminating in 1826 with the consitutional changes that freed Jewish citizens of Maryland from political discrimination. Kennedy also served in Maryland Senate and established the "Hagerstown Mail" newspaper. He is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery.
Anti-Semitism’s heel ground harder, unrelenting, crushing, murderous and vicious. Jewish life, the worth of Jewish life, in Poland and Russia, plunged into degeneration. Zionism, Max Nordau knew, was the path to regeneration.” Judith Rice
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In Argentina, Isaac brought Sophia to his business at the Hotel Palestina and the Café Parisienne in Buenos Aires. She, and other new "brides", were displayed naked before groups of Jewish businessmen who examined what they were about to buy, carefully. Isaac, like the other Jewish businessmen, only dealt in Jewish women.
Sophia was sold.
In Memory of Sophia Chamys, JASHP had a Jahrzeit Plaque dedicated.
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Norbeck Rosenwald School
Norbeck Rosenwald School
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County-funded elementary education for African American children did not exist until 1872. Until then, small black enclaves, like Mount Pleasant, pulled community resources to establish schools. A significant boost in financial assistance came in 1917 with the establishment of the Julius Rosenwald Fund. Between 1920 and 1929, fifteen Rosenwald Schools were built in Montgomery County – collectively covered by African American residents contributing $7300 to match the $8200 donated by Jewish philanthropist and Sears founder Julius Rosenwald (1862-1932). The remaining $61,360 came from tax revenue. Nine schools, including Norbeck, were constructed between 1927-1928. This two-teacher, two-room, one-story structure cost $5300 to build.
Classroom instruction included the basics — reading, writing, and arithmetic, and followed the Tuskegee model established by educator Booker T. Washington (1856-1915). The emphasis was on self-help and gender-specific vocational training. Conditions inside were not always ideal for learning as former pupil Mabel D. Jackson recalled, "There were no inside facilities, water,or central heat. We had free books but never any new ones. These books were dirty, ragged, marked in, and often had pages missing." These inequities only increased as the school entered the Great Depression. During World War II, Norbeck had 85 students from 1st to 7th grades. Norbeck closed in 1951, three years before the 1954 Supreme Court ruling Brown v. Board of Education overturned segregation. In 1957, M-NCPPC developed plans to convert the school into a recreational center, a function that continues today.
Norbeck was one of over 5,000 Rosenwald Schools built in the American South, and one of 156 schoolhouses established in twenty of Maryland's counties between 1918 and 1932.
Mount Pleasant Following Emancipation in 1864, freedmen communities developed throughout Montgomery County. Formerly enslaved laborers acquired small parcels of land, creating the community of Mount Pleasant. In 1872, A.D. Wadsworth sold 0.5 acres to help establish one of the first segregated schools in Montgomery County. The original two-room frame school burnt down in 1925. The Rosenwald School replaced it in 1927. On Sundays, Mount Pleasant Methodist Episcopal Church used the school next door for worship service. By 1885, the church purchased land for a permanent sanctuary Behind the school is the community cemetery on land acquired the community cemetery
2. Norbeck Rosenwald School Marker
on land acquired in 1883 "exclusively for a burying lot for the colored people." The Mackall's Tabernacle operated a lodge that once stood on land behind the church during the first half of the 20th century. Today, the Waves of Glory Worship Center occupies the ca. 1890s chapel. The Jerusalem-Mount Pleasant United Methodist Church still owns and stewards the cemetery.
[Captions:] Former Norbeck teacher Zelma Smith remembered, "My teaching years were filled with pleasant incidents too numerous to recall." Teachers were hired and observed by the county-appointed "Supervisor of Colored Schools." This position was originally held by A. D. Owens from 1917 to 1923, and his replacement, Edward U. Taylor, who hired Ms. Smith in 1929.
The original two-room school configuration had one room set aside for classroom instruction, while the other room served as a coat closet and storeroom for wood.M-NCPPC converted the building into a community meeting space with indoor restrooms and a kitchen.
This 1945 map of Norbeck shows the Rosenwald School with a flag, and both the cemetery and the church indicated by a cross.
In 1942-1943, some of the county Rosenwald Schools were documented — showing the variation between a one-teacher (Ken-Gar, Scotland), two-teacher (Norbeck, Rockville, Spencerville, Takoma Park), and three-teacher
3. The Norbeck Rosenwald School
configuration (River Road, Sandy Spring).
The institutions at the heart of the Mount Pleasant community as seen in 1913. Erected by Montgomery Parks; funding generously provided by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.
