Englewood, New Jersey, incorporated as a city on March 17, 1899, has been celebrating its 125th anniversary as a vibrant, diverse city composed of many ethnic groups. To close out the 125th celebratory year, the City of Englewood held a program on February 19 at Congregation Ahavath Torah, documenting the early history of Englewood’s Jewish community. Dr. Lisa Wisotsky, council president, opened up the program by noting the Jewish community’s 130-year history in Englewood and how integral the Jewish community has been to Englewood’s development. The presentation was co-sponsored by Ahavath Torah, Shomrei Emunah, East Hill Synagogue, Kehilat Kesher and the Englewood Historical Society.
Genealogist and historian Joy Kestenbaum spoke about her family’s roots in Englewood and how her interest in family history led her to document the wider story of the Jewish community in Englewood, beginning in the late 1800s.
Kestenbaum’s interest in family history began with the close relationship she had with her grandmother, aunt and mother, who all lived into their 90s. Towards the end of their lives, Kestenbaum drove her mother, Rae Freedman Kestenbaum, and aunt, Minnie Freedman Brockman, to the Ahavath Torah cemetery to visit their parents’ graves, where they reminisced about many people buried there. They continued sharing their memories as Kestenbaum drove them through Englewood. Kestenbaum said she regrets that her mother and aunt were never formally interviewed about their time in Englewood. She has since conducted extensive research in records and databases, and took two trips to Poland where she visited her grandparents’ hometowns.
Until the mid-1850s, Englewood was a rural enclave of mostly farms. It became a village in 1859. That same year the Northern Railroad connected Englewood on its line to Jersey City. Over the next 20 years, Englewood transitioned from a small farming community to a commuter railroad site. In 1871 Englewood Township was created as a separate entity from Hackensack Township. By 1896, Englewood was divided into four wards.
Kestenbaum said that Jews began coming to Englewood in the 1880s and 1890s; many were Litvaks from the Kovno governorate of the Russian Empire. They were small businessmen, peddlers, butchers and farmers, living mainly in the fourth ward below Palisades Avenue, the main commercial street. She found a newspaper article referring to the area as Little Jerusalem. Kestenbaum’s grandparents, Benjamin and Selina Freedman, moved to Englewood in 1918, in what was known as the Highwood area in the third ward, and lived there until the 1960s. An Englewood city directory lists her grandfather as the owner of Highwood Tailor and Furrier, where he also operated a cleaning business. Kestenbaum showed the audience a photo of her grandparents in front of the building on West Hudson Avenue that they built, where they worked and the family lived. She once asked her maternal aunt why the family chose Englewood. Her aunt said they came because someone from her grandfather’s hometown of Narewka in northeastern Poland had moved to Englewood and informed her grandfather that there was a cleaning business for sale in Highwood.
Chain migration, people moving to places where they had friends and relatives, planted the seed of the Jewish community in Englewood. It became an attractive place to live with its varied modes of transportation and proximity to New York. Kestenbaum’s mother told her that her mother, Kestenbaum’s grandmother, used to take the ferry to the Lower East Side to get fabric for her grandfather.
The Jewish community took a big step forward at the close of the 19th century by forming the first established Jewish community in Bergen County. Kestenbaum found sources documenting that the founding members were all born between 1850 and 1870 and had immigrated around the 1870s to 1890s. In the mid-1890s, eight Jewish residents met to discuss forming a minyan for the High Holy Days and soon thereafter purchased a sefer Torah.
The actual date of the congregation’s founding varies according to different sources. The new minyan held services at different locations until a synagogue was built in 1901 on Humphrey Street. The congregation provided support for their members, with the establishment of a Hebrew Ladies Aid Society and Hebrew Loan Association, in addition to having a cemetery, a Hebrew school and a space for prayer.
A second synagogue, erected on West Englewood Avenue, was dedicated in September 1912. Kestenbaum’s research uncovered an article calling it “a major regional event” with many attending. Congregants and city officials marched from the old building to the new one, led by a band. A clubhouse was built next to the synagogue to accommodate the social activities of the growing Jewish community. In 1926 the congregation dedicated a new Hebrew school and gymnasium behind the synagogue. In 1958 the congregation purchased the estate of Baroness Cassel Van Dorn on Broad Avenue, which became the new home of Congregation Ahavath Torah. The Moriah School, now 60 years old, began at Ahavath Torah before moving to its own building on South Woodland Street. The combination of easy access to Manhattan via the George Washington Bridge and Lincoln Tunnel, plus the opening of a day school and several more synagogues, have made Englewood a desirable community that continues to attract Jewish families.
Kestenbaum inherited a large cache of family photos and documents including a guestbook for her grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary celebration in 1956. Many who signed the guestbook were members of Ahavath Torah and longtime residents of Englewood, like Kestenbaum’s grandparents. Kestenbaum traced many of the people in the book, as well as Dorothy Bayard Haber, one of her mother’s best friends from Englewood. Kestenbaum located Haber’s daughter Sara Halman and they have formed their own bond.
Halman came to the presentation with her family photos and albums and shared them with me, along with her memories.
Halman’s great-aunt and great-uncle Sadie and Max Grobow were philanthropists and contributed to the well-being of Englewood as a whole, in addition to the Jewish community. They were supporters of Ahavath Torah and raised money for Englewood Hospital. Max was a founder of the Moriah School. There is a room at the shul named for their son, Eddie Grobow, who died at a young age.
Isador Katz was a prominent supporter of Ahavath Torah who signed the guestbook at the 50th anniversary party of Kestenbaum’s grandparents. Many Englewood residents today will remember the Katz Lounge in Ahavath Torah’s former building, which was named after him. His grandson Ken Katz, who manages the ice rink at the John T. Wright Arena, came to Kestenbaum’s talk. “Lisa invited me and no one says no to Lisa,” he quipped. “She sent me an article and I realized that my family going back a couple of generations was instrumental in establishing Ahavath Torah.”
In a follow-up interview, Kestenbaum shared stories she didn’t have time to present about the participation of Englewood’s Jewish community in the World War II era. Her mother, who graduated from Englewood Hospital School of Nursing, was a U.S. army nurse, and her uncle, a rabbi, was an army chaplain.
In his opening introduction to the program, Rabbi Chaim Poupko, noted that in Hebrew, there is no word for history. There is zachor—to remember. “In Jewish tradition, we study history because studying history is studying our own identity,” he said. “It’s recalling who we are and where we’ve come from. And you can really only head into the future and plan for tomorrow and for next year if you know who you are and you know where you come from.” He also noted that when Ahavath Torah tore down its old building, the bricks were ground down to use as a foundation for the new one.
The Jews who journeyed from Eastern Europe to Englewood knew who they were despite persecution in the old country, and the challenges of starting over in a new one. Many lived in poverty until they could rise. The Jews who came to Englewood made a life for themselves, their families and their community—and built a foundation for generations to come.
