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    Jewish Denver: 1859-1940
    Jewish Denver: 1859-1940
    Jewish Denver: 1859-1940
    Ebook188 pages46 minutes

    Jewish Denver: 1859-1940

    By Jeanne E. Abrams Ph.D.

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    In 1859, during the Pike s Peak gold rush, at least 12 Jews joined the great migration to Colorado in search of gold and a brighter future. The unpredictability of mining and a growing demand for supplies encouraged many of these Jewish settlers to establish small businesses in Denver and in towns and mining camps across the state. By the early 1870s, Jewish benevolent societies and a congregation were established. Denver s dry, mild climate attracted patients with tuberculosis, and two Jewish sanatoriums were opened in the city around the beginning of the 20th century. Many of the predominantly Eastern European Jews who came in search of better health made Denver their home, thus augmenting the early Jewish population significantly. Today Jewish life flourishes in Colorado, and Jewish citizens continue to play a vital role in its culture and development.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateNov 21, 2007
    ISBN9781439618387
    Jewish Denver: 1859-1940
    Author

    Jeanne E. Abrams Ph.D.

    Jeanne E. Abrams, Ph.D., is a professor at Penrose Library and the longtime director of the Beck Archives and the Rocky Mountain Jewish Historical Society. She is also the author of Jewish Women Pioneering the Frontier Trail: A History in the American West. Part of the University of Denver�s Center for Judaic Studies and Penrose Library Special Collections, the Beck Archives provided the majority of the images in this collection.

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      Book preview

      Jewish Denver - Jeanne E. Abrams Ph.D.

      Denver.

      INTRODUCTION

      Colorado was still an untamed wilderness when the discovery of gold near Pike’s Peak in 1858 brought the area to the nation’s attention. By the spring of 1859, fortune seekers began to arrive in droves. Jews also took part in the quest. Jewish settlers arrived in Colorado as early as the 1850s, but there was no lasting Jewish community as such until the early 1870s when the first Jewish organizations and synagogues were formally established. The first Jewish settlers in the Denver area, primarily of Central European or German origin, came to Colorado in search of freedom, new opportunities on the frontier, and wealth. They were typical of the first Jewish settlers in the region—generally young, unmarried, of German descent, and entering businesses dealing with the distribution of goods. The open and expanding American economy before and after the Civil War contributed to the success of these enterprising pioneers, as did their merchandising experience and Jewish networks of credit that stretched back to the East Coast.

      The unpredictability of gold mining and a growing demand for supplies encouraged many of these pioneer Jewish 1859ers to establish small businesses in new towns and mining camps throughout Colorado. Their arrival marked the beginning of Denver’s and Colorado’s established Jewish community. During the next two decades, they settled in places throughout the state such as Leadville, Cripple Creek, Aspen, Trinidad, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, and Central City, but before long, Denver emerged as the main hub. In Southern Colorado, Jewish men were active in commerce from the earliest days of the Anglo entrance into that traditionally Hispanic area. They came via the Santa Fe Trail. Farther north in Pueblo and Colorado Springs, Jews began to arrive as early as the 1860s. Jewish brothers Burton and Charles Myers operated a hotel in Colorado Springs as early as 1864. Burton’s wife later recalled that it was a typical wild west hostelry where liquors were sold; card games ran all night.

      As the early Jewish pioneer men married, often importing their brides from back east, and as children were born, the fledgling towns of Colorado began to stabilize. The Jewish community also began to establish a more permanent structure beginning with a pioneer Jewish burial society in Denver to ensure that their co-religionists were buried in accordance with Jewish tradition. Before long Jewish benevolent societies, a synagogue, and charitable groups began to appear on the horizon. While Jewish men often concentrated on city building, the women were instrumental in community building. Many of Colorado’s Jewish women were involved in social welfare and reform both within and outside of the Jewish community and took central roles in helping to ensure Jewish continuity through support of synagogues, Jewish charitable institutions, education, and Jewish practices within the home. Frances Wisebart Jacobs, for example, became an icon in philanthropy throughout the entire Denver community, and she was later honored by a stained-glass window in the state capitol building for her notable work to improve conditions for the poor and sick in early Denver. Seraphine Pisko and Ray David were later closely involved in Jewish settlement work among the East European Russian immigrants and were appointed to prominent civic positions as well. By 1877, there were approximately 422 Jews living in Colorado, around 260 of them residing in Denver. Twenty years later, Colorado’s Jewish population had risen to 1,500 with the majority living in Denver.

      By the 1880s, as Denver’s climate became known throughout the country as one favorable for curing respiratory diseases, tuberculosis in particular, people flocked to Colorado for their health. Soon Colorado was known popularly as the World’s Sanatorium, and the state became a mecca for consumptives, as tuberculosis was also commonly known. Jews, many from the garment industries of the East Coast, came to Denver in search of a cure for tuberculosis. Eventually, two national hospitals, the National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives (NJH) and the Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Society (JCRS), were established by the Denver Jewish community to take care of their health needs and serve the community as a whole. Inspired by Frances Wisebart Jacobs, and with the financial assistance of Denver’s acculturated, more affluent Reform Jews and the International Order of B’nai B’rith, NJH opened its doors in 1899 to Jews and Gentiles alike with early-stage tuberculosis, although the majority of patients for many years were East European Jews. Founded by a group of poor East European immigrants, the JCRS was opened in 1904 to treat patients in all stages of the disease and to offer patients a more traditional Jewish environment. Formally nonsectarian, the vast majority of consumptives at the JCRS sanatorium were also Russian Jews. In Europe, most of these immigrant Russian Jews had resided in the prescribed Pale

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