The Jewish Orphanage of Rhode Island (JORI) began as two separate organizations. In 1908, initially headed by the South Providence Ladies’ Aid Society and Mr. Herman Paster, the first charter for a specifically Jewish children’s orphanage was granted to “support and maintain orphan children between the ages of six and twenty one.” Very soon after obtaining the charter, the Ladies Aid Society withdrew their support to organize another home. At the same time, Mr. Paster obtained another charter, called Machzeka Hadas Orphans on Willard Ave in South Providence, which housed 17 children within its first few months of operation. The home operated by the South Providence Ladies’ Aid Society and their co-sponsors, the Montefiore Lodge Ladies Hebrew Benevolent Association, was named Hebrew Orphans Home and Day Nursery, located at 151 Orms St. next to the present day Sons of Jacob synagogue.

In January of 1910, the two homes merged and created The Jewish Orphanage of Rhode Island with Mr. Maurice Karpeles as President of the board. This new leadership was committed to obtaining a centrally located building to house the dependent children of the Jewish community, and purchased a large Victorian home located at 1213 North Main Street. This new forty-five bed location was led by superintendent Mr. Henry Woolf, along with board members such as Mrs. Ida Silverman, Mrs. Ida Bolotow, Col. Harry Cutler, Mr. Jacob Shartenberg, and countless others.

With the growing number of children living in the orphanage, the board decided it was time to purchase land and build a home that could accommodate more children, and allow them the comforts of a real home and of their community. In 1922, the board purchased land on Summit Avenue in Providence, and the cornerstone was laid on October 21, 1923. Construction of the New Jewish Orphanage of Rhode Island was completed, and the building was dedicated on October 5, 1924. This new state of the art home came fully equipped with tennis courts, a basketball court, and plenty of room for the children to enjoy the outdoors while making friends with the neighborhood children.

Throughout the years, the home saw several Superintendents, who in their various ways kept life for the children as normal as possible. Perhaps the most remembered Superintendent, Mr. Maurice Stollerman, was brought to JORI in 1926. Mr. Stollerman was ever the children’s advocate. He attempted to appoint guardians for all children considered full orphans so they might have an established emotional connection with a family during their time in the home. He also initiated steps that allowed the children who would be aging out of the home an easier transition to life on their own.

The children placed in the Jewish Orphanage were often sent to the home because their families could not afford to provide for them. Mr. Stollerman saw to it that if they did have a living parent or relative, that the families could regularly visit their children. Additionally, siblings in the home were often kept together, in the hope that they would feel some semblance of normalcy.

Though this orphanage was a home for displaced children, they were treated as the sons and daughters of the community, and were always taken care of spiritually, emotionally, and physically. The whole orphanage would participate in the Passover seder, and attended religious confirmation classes and services at Temple Emanuel. They held an annual Thanksgiving dance, at which funds for the home would be raised, and the children would put on plays, and showcase their musical talents in the JORI Band. Life at the Jewish Orphanage was not like life in many of the other institutions in Rhode Island.

The orphanage operated until 1942, when foster and adoption arrangements were made for the eight children who remained in the home.

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It was 1905, and five orthodox Jewish men from Pawtucket signed incorporation papers for a synagogue to be called The Congregation Ohawe Shalom. The only problem was that they had no money for a building, so they were forced to worship in a variety of buildings in the city. By 1918 they had raised $80,000 to buy land on which to build a synagogue. The congregation had grown to more than 350 families, most living in Central Falls and Pawtucket. The land for the new synagogue, at the corner of High and Jackson Streets, was less than a block from the border with Central Falls.

However, before construction could begin, an old theater on the site was razed, and a three-story tenement house was moved to the back of the property. It became the venue for the congregation’s social events. The Ohawe Shalom Synagogue was dedicated in 1921, and for decades, it was the only one in the two cities. The two buildings became the lodestar for the immigrant Jewish families in the neighborhood, many of whom had arrived in this country from Eastern Europe and Russia, with no money, few skills, and little education.

The synagogue is still there, but the building behind it is gone. As the Jews migrated to the suburbs, membership sharply declined. The synagogue finally closed in the late 1970s, and today it houses the Immaculate Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Church.

A few blocks from the synagogue, along Central Street in Central Falls, were small stores--delis, grocery stores, even junk shops--owned by the Jewish immigrants in the neighborhood. Drive down this narrow street to see a few remaining shops, although they are no longer owned by Jews. Or you could have walked the half a mile to downtown Pawtucket to shop at Shartenberg’s, the largest department store, which was at the corner of Main Street and Park Place. The business was founded by Jacob Shartenberg, a German Jew, in the late 1800’s as The New Idea Store.

Soon after the turn of the century, it became Shartenberg’s, and for decades it remained one of the most popular and prosperous businesses downtown.

By the end of the 20th century, the building had been demolished and replaced by a parking garage. But for more than a century, Mr. Shartenberg and other Jews who emigrated from Germany in the mid-to-late 1800’s played an important role in the business life of downtown Pawtucket.

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The founders of the Sons of Jacob, an Orthodox synagogue, had a vision: a soaring edifice in the North End of Providence that would be a symbol of their prosperity and place in the new world.

Having fled the pogroms in Russia and Poland and unrest in Austria in the late 1800s, they were determined to prosper in Providence. Their first synagogue was begun in 1896 when a small group of men met on an upper floor of a house on Shawmut Street and Chalkstone Avenue, right in the middle of a dense Jewish population. Those founders then purchased land on the corner of Douglas and Orms Street, and in 1906 finished construction on the first floor. At a cost of $50,000, they now had a home!

In 1906 Sons of Jacob was not the only synagogue in the neighborhood. The surrounding blocks were filled with Jewish families and businesses, and there were over two dozen houses of worship chartered in the neighborhood, then called the North End and now Smith Hill. However, as the demographics changed, the smaller congregations gave their scrolls to Sons of Jacob and joined themselves to this, more substantial, group.

In 1922, the upper floors were added to accommodate the worshippers; the second floor was for the men, and the third floor for the women, as is the custom for separate seating for men and women in Orthodox congregations. The finished building, designed by Harry Marshak, a local architect, was modeled on a building erected in 1836 in Kassel, West Germany, thus giving another tie to the founders’ former lives. With a substantial building, Rabbi Isaac Blik became the first full-time spiritual leader.

Examine the first floor with its murals around the Ark. Look at the names inscribed on the windows and walls. How proud they were of their new-found success! Go upstairs and marvel at the ceiling medallions depicting the zodiac. The pictures over the front bimah, or speaker’s platform, describe Perkei Avot (teachings of the fathers). The huge chandelier, with its massive weight and brilliant light, adds gravity and grace to the structure. These incredible illustrations, as well as the Zodiac scherenschnitte (cut paper work), were done by Sam Shore, the first president of the synagogue after it moved to Douglas Avenue.

As time went on, the area changed. One factor was the construction of Routes 146 and I-95, when a huge swath of buildings was destroyed and people were forced to move. Another factor was the increasing wealth of the residents, and their desire to live in more up-scale areas. Some went to the suburbs of Cranston and Warwick, and others to the East Side of Providence.

While the people moved, the building remained. The vibrant community was no more. Even while a minyan, the gathering of 10 Jewish men over the age of 13 to have public prayer, continued to be held most mornings, the building gradually deteriorated. Without a thriving community willing to do repairs, problems with the roof and buttresses arose.

The Rhode Island Jewish Museum was founded in an attempt to save the building as an artifact of great cultural importance. It is the last surviving and active synagogue of that era in Providence. When repurposed as a Museum, its legacy will be saved for future generations.

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This area was almost totally Irish when I and my compatriots from Austria and Romania began our life in Providence in the early 1880’s on Robinson St. After 1900, Russian Jews fleeing pogroms came to South Providence. Most arrived with little in the way of possessions – perhaps treasured candlesticks, a prayer book and some clothes stuffed into a box.

There was work at jewelry factories like Ludwig’s or Lederer’s. Others of us peddled - walking the streets with a pack on our backs until we were able to save enough money to buy a horse and wagon. The pay at the factories was $3 per week, but rent was only $4 per month. Few people in the neighborhood owned a single-family house.

My family lived in a four room flat in a new three tenement we bought on Willard Ave: the other two flats were rented out. We were lucky to have gaslights and a bathtub in the bathroom. My neighbors, who were not so fortunate, went to the nearby bathhouse. There were, of course, very poor people living in our neighborhood. They received help from Jewish volunteer aid agencies, such as the Montefiore Ladies Association and the South Providence Ladies Aid Societies.

My home was a stopping point for many immigrants until they could find a job and a place to live. We often had “guests” staying with us, sometimes for a month or more. They were newly arrived immigrants – either our relatives or ‘landsleit’ (Yiddish), who were people from our town in Europe who had no family to take them in. Their arrival meant doubling up on bedrooms or giving up the parlor to a family. Even with the crowding, no one was turned away. We helped them find work and get settled.

We also had health insurance through beneficial associations. For a small sum weekly, you could join a beneficial or assisting society which offered a form of insurance. Some offered sick benefits like the Miriam Association while some had death benefits to pay some funeral expenses.

It was difficult to find kosher food in the neighborhood before the turn of the century, but by the 1920s we could buy kosher meat around the corner from my house. Although many of us went to separate synagogues to pray in the familiar tongues of our native lands, we had one social center where celebrations and meetings took place - Bazar’s Hall. Bazar’s even hosted a branch of the Providence Public Library where the Yiddish books were extremely popular.

Education was of utmost importance and we children actually attended two schools. First we attended the nearby public elementary school, and after our regular school day, we went to the Talmud Torah (Hebrew School) on Chester Avenue. It had a dual purpose as spelled out in its charter: “For Hebrew Education and to keep children off the streets after school hours...”. High School is where we first met people from outside of our neighborhood.

This was our life. Up until World War II, South Providence was a vibrant Jewish community. After the War, people began to move to other parts of the city, and to the suburbs. Urban renewal – hospitals, schools, and parking lots – have since taken over my neighborhood, which now only exists in photos and memories.

Author Geraldine "Jerry" Foster shares her family's personal experiences of life in the heart of Jewish South Providence from the early 1900s to today.

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