The New Haven Shtetl: Immigration, Enterprise, and Jewish Life & JHSGNH Membership Meeting

This program will focus on the Oak Street/Legion Avenue, a bustling immigrant neighborhood that was home to generations of Jewish families who built bakeries, grocery stores, tailor shops, synagogues, landsmanshaftn, and community institutions within walking distance of one another. Yiddish could be heard on the sidewalks, and neighborhood businesses served as the social and economic backbone of Jewish life in New Haven.
Using archival photographs and documents, this program will explore how Jewish immigrants created a close-knit urban community while adapting to life in America. The talk will also briefly touch on the dramatic changes that reshaped the neighborhood in the mid-twentieth century, including urban renewal and highway construction, which displaced many residents and transformed the physical landscape of the city.