Philadelphia's Lost Jewish Quarter

Event lasts 2 hours. Meet inside Starr Garden playground at 6th and Lombard. Tour ends at 5th and Spruce.

From the 1880s through the 1920s the area between Spruce and Christian Street and 2nd and 6th was the Philadelphia equivalent of New York's famous Lower East Side. Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe created a vibrant community with its own Yiddish Theater, literary societies and newspapers, along with synagogues and banks, bath houses and delicatessens.

This walk begins with an introduction to early Jewish life in Philadelphia, and then continues to explore the rest of the “Jewish Quarter,” pointing out sites of former bathhouses, shuls, newspapers, theaters, stores, social service buildings, union halls, banks and hospitals, as well as the still-active Society Hill Synagogue and Congregation B'nai Abraham. Hear about the dramatic Kosher butcher strike of 1911, learn about the Jews arrested on Yom Kippur in 1889, hear the ongoing debate over the first hot-dog roll, and discover the true story of the Three Stooges.

Jerry Silverman is a certified member of the Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides. He earned a Bachelor of Hebrew Literature and a Master of Jewish Education, served as the High School principal of Temple Beth Sholom in Cherry Hill, NJ, as well as the Educational Director of Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel. Since 2009, Jerry has been giving tours for Mural Arts Philadelphia, and the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia. He is a founding member of the Museum of American Jewish History, and was the founder of the former LGBT synagogue Beth Ahavah.

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Questions, concerns, conundrums? Contact Hidden City project director Peter Woodall at [email protected].

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