Jewish Community
Part 1 (1850-1900)
Entry Author: Stephen
Mark Dobbs
Jews were among the earliest settlers who arrived in San
Francisco in the early 19th century. The European presence
was first established by Spain in the late 18th century, with
the dedication of a Franciscan Mission and a Presidio
(garrison) in 1776, even as the new American republic was
given birth in Philadelphia.
The Spanish missionaries exploited the native-American population,
mostly Ohlone and Costanoan Indians, who all but vanished
by the middle of the next century. Until the Gold Rush, the
sleepy outpost was only occasionally visited by ships, including
the Alert with Richard Henry Dana aboard. The merchants
and ship suppliers who outfitted whaling vessels which anchored
in the quiet deepwater shoreline cove called the town Yerba
Buena, after a "good herb" found along the shoreline.
Spain lost her New World colonies, including Mexico, in the
1820s. The political vacuum created in "Alta California"
led to mercantile opportunities for the hardy, and among the
settlers around the Yerba Buena cove were men with names such
as Jacobs, Meyers, Fischer, and Adler. But there is no evidence
of an organized Jewish community at this stage, prior to the
1850s.
In fact, the entire population of the town prior to the Gold
Rush numbered in the hundreds. The United States, which had
tried unsuccessfully to purchase Mexico's territories above
the Rio Grande, went to war in 1846. On July 9, Captain Montgomery,
of the naval ship Portsmouth, raised the American flag
in Yerba Buena and its few hundred citizens found themselves
bloodlessly converted from citizens of Mexico to the United
States.
The transition from "Yerba Buena" to "San Francisco"
occurred in January 1847, when Washington Bartlett, the first
U.S. district commissioner, changed the name of the town.
This honored St. Francis of Assisi, patron of the Franciscans
who had established the Mission 70 years earlier. An historical
curiosity is that a man by the same name would a few decades
later become San Francisco's first Jewish Mayor (not Adolph
Sutro or Dianne Feinstein). The second Washington Bartlett
was descended from a prominent Sephardic (of Spanish or North
African origins) family, the Henriquez of Charleston, South
Carolina. He was elected in 1882 and re-elected in 1884, then
in 1886 he became California's first and only Jewish governor.
Bartlett died in office in 1887, the first California governor
to acquire that distinction.
1850 - 1900
A year later, in 1848, gold was discovered by John Marshall
at Sutter's Fort on the American River in the foothills of
the Sierra Nevada. By 1852, about 250,000 people poured into
San Francisco en route to the goldfields. It was an international
event which historian Hubert Howe Bancroft described as "a
medley of races and nationalities, including the ubiquitous
Hebrews." Making it to San Francisco was no picnic. The
Overland Trail was long and dangerous, or one could take the
equally fearsome sea voyage from the east coast around the
horn of South America, a journey of some 18,000 miles. A third
option involved sailing on two oceans and a perilous crossing
of malarial straits at the Isthmus of Panama.
Why did the Jews come? Epochal events such as the French
Revolution had raised Jewish hopes throughout Europe for relief
from 1000 years of oppression. But in such places as Bavaria,
where Jews expected legal equality, economic decline and political
unrest caused German reactionaries to crush Jewish hopes,
and re-impose medieval restrictions. Some 200,000 Jews emigrated
from Germany during the decades of the mid-century. Other
Jews came from the east coast, having migrated earlier to
America. Jews came to San Francisco for a better life, for
freedom to practice their religion as they wished, for a fresh
start and worldly success on a level playing field.
The early Jewish presence in Gold Rush San Francisco is acknowledged
on a bronze plaque on the 700 block of Montgomery Street,
which at that time was the shoreline of the Bay. It commemorates
the first celebration of Rosh Hashanah in San Francisco near
that site in a wood-framed tent, the first such observance
on the west coast, on September 26, 1849 (5610).
The thirty or so Jews at Rosh Hashanah (fifty by Yom Kippur)
were of diverse backgrounds, including Joseph Shannon, an
American-born Jew who would become the first treasurer of
the county of San Francisco; Benjamin Davidson, an Englishman
and a Rothschild agent; Barnett Keesing, whose wife was the
only woman known to have attended the services; and Lewis
Franklin of Poland, in whose store the community first worshipped
together.
The Montgomery Street site is both symbolic and telling:
both the Jewish community and the non-Jewish community started
at the same place, along the water's edge. This recalls the
historic importance of the sea in the Diaspora, as well as
in the most ancient of Jewish stories of the Exodus. A "Magen
David" (Jewish star) in the grillwork of the fire escape
on the 1911 neoclassical Old TransAmerica building, to which
the plaque is affixed, is also a fitting metaphor for escaping
from the Old World.
California offered hope and redemption. Jews were certainly
among those who were willing to brave the frontier in return
for the opportunities of the frontier, which made the adventure
so attractive. The rumor about the gold country was that nuggets
as big as a fist were lying on the surface waiting to be "mined."
The reality was otherwise.
Jewish Commercial Success
The Gold Rush did bring prosperity to some, but the difficulties
and dangers of the gold fields frustrated most others who
returned home after an unsuccessful search for the yellow
metal. Jewish "49ers" realized they might do better
by selling to the miners the equipment and supplies they needed,
instead of facing the uncertainties of the mines.
Perhaps the most famous Jewish immigrant of this period was
Levi Strauss, world-
renowned for his sturdy workpants made out of heavy denim
(a French material for tents), reinforced with rivets, would
become an international icon, and his company the world's
largest maker of apparel including jeans. Other men also saw
great opportunity and put down roots in Gold Rush days, or
soon thereafter in early San Francisco. Pioneer families included
Bissinger, Brandenstein, Dinkelspiel, Fleishhacker, Gerstle,
Greenebaum, Haas, Helbing, Hellman, Kohl, Koshland, Levison,
Levy, Liebes, Lilienthal, Magnin, Meyer, Schwabacher, Seligman,
Sloss, Stern, Sutro, Weill, and Zellerbach.
Jews prospered in the boisterous commercial climate of the
mid-19th century in boomtown San Francisco, and by 1853 there
were about 3,000 Jews in the area. The City was wide-open,
which offered many possibilities. A citizen's standing was
based primarily upon performance rather than pedigree, and
Jews quickly became part of the meritocracy. But while Jews
were freely accepted and there was little anti-Semitism, the
fruits of Social Darwinism in San Francisco were not available
to everyone, as those acting with prejudice sought continuously
to exclude Chinese, Mexicans, and other nationalities.
Since virtually everyone was a newcomer, some of those who
eventually emerged as part of the aristocracy had more humble
origins. For example, Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, Mark
Hopkins, and Collis Huntington, the "Big Four" railroad
tycoons who built the Transcontinental Railroad, embodied
the Gilded Age. Yet they were all self-made men who started
out as merchants. Stanford would later invite the Jewish businessman,
Louis Sloss, to sit on the board of his new university in
Palo Alto.
It became clear early on that once the gold fields were exhausted,
the economy would need to run on other commerce. Virtually
everything had to be shipped to San Francisco. The more aggressive
among the business types would charter boats and go out to
meet ships coming in to harbor, and buy up their merchandise
before reaching the docks. By the later 19th century many
businesses were established or led by Jews which became closely
identified with San Francisco, including the Alaska Commercial
Co., Anglo-America Bank, City of Paris, Crown Zellerbach,
Fireman's Fund, Gump's, Liebes, Magnin's, MJB Coffee, Ransohoffs,
Roos Brothers, S & W Foods, Sommer & Kaufman, Sutro
& Co, Wells Fargo Bank, and The White House.
Jewish Institutions are Established
 Wherever
there are Jewish populations, there are synagogues where the
community (kehilah) comes together for spiritual and
social purpose. The first houses of worship were chartered
in the spring of 1850. The Jews from Germany and Central Europe
formed Congregation Emanu-El
("God is with Us"), and the Jews from Prussian Poland
and Eastern Europe established Congregation Sherith Israel
("loyal remnant of Israel"). The schism in geographic
origin and culture was also demonstrated by the formation
of two separate charitable associations, the Eureka Benevolent
Society for the Germans, and the Hebrew Benevolent Society
for the Poles and others. These furnished schools, orphanages,
and cemeteries, including a chevra kidisha (burial
society).
Temple Emanu-El before
the fire of April 18th, 1906.
The Online Archive of California
While the division between the German Jews and virtually everyone
else remained, there was cooperation in taking care of the
needy and indigent within the Jewish community, especially
the newcomers that periodically augmented the growing Jewish
population of San Francisco. Social and cultural developments
also indicated evolution of the Jewish community. In 1853,
the San Francisco Verein (German for "club")
was formed, including among its charter members many Jewish
businessmen who socialized with the Gentile upper-class and
contributed to their community projects. For example, the
German Benevolent Society built a German Hospital by enlisting
Jewish community assistance. This became the Franklin Hospital
which was later renamed the Ralph K. Davies Medical Center.
The community also decided to establish a Jewish hospital,
especially as fresh waves of immigration brought Eastern European
Jews fleeing pogroms and persecution in Czarist Russia. Mount
Zion Hospital was chartered in 1887, "for the purpose
of aiding the indigent sick without regard to race or creed,
to be supported by the Jewish community." Soon a Jewish
men's club, the Concordia, a descendant of the Verein,
would also be founded.
Jews in Politics in the 19th century
Developing social relations with the non-Jewish community
was promoted by Jews engaging in political life. California
was admitted to the Union in September 1850, and two Jews,
Elkan and Isaac Cardozo, were members of the first state legislature.
In the early 1850s, both Henry Lyons and Solomon Heydenfeldt
were appointed to the California Supreme Court.
 The
second Jewish mayor of San Francisco was Adolph Sutro, who
served a brief two year term in the mid-1890s. Sutro was a
mining engineer who had become fabulously wealthy by building
a tunnel through the mountains (the "Comstock")
to drain off the water which filled the silver mines. Sutro
moved to San Francisco in 1879 and became the city's largest
landowner, purchasing much of the western region of the city
which was primarily sand dunes. At one time he owned about
1/12 of all the land in San Francisco.
Adolph Sutro photographed by I. W. Taber,
1886
The Online Archive of
California
Sutro was also San Francisco's first major philanthropist.
He sponsored the planting of more than a million trees within
the 49 square mile municipal limits, and built gardens for
public pleasure, including around his own home. The Sutro
Baths, based on his knowledge of water hydraulics, was carved
out of the cliff side at Lands End, at the northwest corner
of San Francisco near the historic Cliff House, which Sutro
also owned. He was a major collector of Hebraica which survives
today in the Sutro Library at San Francisco State University.
Jewish Contributions to Cultural Development
The cultural development of San Francisco had been virtually
assured since the days of the Gold Rush. Those who came to
California often had cosmopolitan tastes, and a voracious
appetite for books, literary journals, lectures, newspapers,
art galleries, and theatrical and musical performances. Nevertheless,
the number of bookstores, art galleries, and opera companies
paled beside the number of saloons and gambling houses.
The most important visual artist to come out of pioneer San
Francisco was Toby Rosenthal, son of a Prussian-Polish tailor
who worked near Congregation Sherith Israel. Although he spent
most of his adult life living in Europe, Rosenthal was a San
Francisco celebrity, especially among the prominent Jews who
commissioned the artist to do their portraits, such as I.W.
Hellman, Jacob Stern, and Sophie Gerstle Lilienthal. He also
did society portraits of leading non-Jews, including sugar
magnate Claus Spreckels.
Toby Rosenthal had a popular following as well. He painted
grand narrative pictures with historical, mythological, and
romantic themes which gained him international fame by the
mid-1870s. In 1875, more than a thousand people a day lined
up in a downtown art gallery, and paid a 25 cent admission
charge, to view Rosenthal's painting Elaine, hailed
as no other painting in the city's history. Based on a Tennyson
poem, the picture was filled with the romantic poetry and
weeping sentimentalism which characterized academic studio
painting on the eve of Impressionism and the modern movement.
When Elaine was cut from its frame and temporarily
stolen, the local newspapers headlined the story and reported
the procession of art-lovers filing past the empty picture
frame as if at a funeral.
The literary arts also featured Jewish contributors. San
Francisco-based Jewish writers included Oscar Weill (brother
of Raphael, who started the City of Paris, one of the
city's premier department stores), a French Jew who was a
musician and critic for the journal Argonaut. Theatrical
and musical entertainments were also reviewed in the Daily
Dramatic Chronicle, purchased in 1864 by the Jewish brothers
Charles and Michael de Young. They eventually transformed
it into the San Francisco Chronicle.
One of the major promoters of theatrical culture in the City
was David Belasco, a young Jewish actor who shined shoes on
Market Street while dreaming of being a producer. He eventually
became the city's greatest impresario, writing 150 plays and
producing more than 400, including the first American performances
of Madame Butterfly. Belsaco went on to Broadway and
had a major career there in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Jewish performers of national and international reputation
came to San Francisco during the Victorian era. Sarah Isaacs
Mencken, Sarah Bernhardt ("the Divine Sarah"), and
Katherine Hayes (grandmother of Helen Hayes) all performed
on local stages. Fritz Schaal, one of the first conductors
of the San Francisco Symphony, left The City to found the
Philadelphia Orchestra. Alfred Hertz, another early Jewish
symphony conductor, after whom Hertz Music Hall is named at
University of California at Berkeley, conducted the fateful
evening of April 17,1906, when Enrico Caruso, the world's
greatest tenor, performed at the Old Opera House at Fifth
and Mission Streets. In fact, sixty of the 300 founders of
the San Francisco Symphony were Jewish, as were two of the
eight founding directors of the San Francisco Opera, and three
of the first six presidents of the San Francisco Conservatory
of Music.
San Francisco as a center for classical repertoire would
be reinforced later in the 20th century as several singular
Jewish musicians called the city their home. Isaac Stern and
Yehudi Menuhin were raised in San Francisco. Ernst Bloch and
Darius Milhaud, who worked nearby, composed Jewish sacred
music. The Haas Family eventually established the popular
Stern Grove Summer Series, free public concerts in an outdoor
park setting.
But the Jewish population was not entirely highbrow. At the
other end of the spectrum, Jews participated in and contributed
to the popular culture, For example, the city's pugilistic
spirit was well represented by the boxer Joe Choynski, a Polish
Jew, who fought James Corbett, world heavyweight title holder,
in 1889. The match began in Fairfax, was interrupted in the
4th round by the sheriff, and continued on a barge in the
steamy summer heat at Benicia in the North Bay region. Choynski
lost one of the most grueling fights in American boxing history.
Jewish Architecture
As the second half of the 19th century passed and the Jewish
community prospered, Jewish facilities were created which
would become the public face of the community. Several significant
works of Jewish architecture were constructed. The most impressive
was the new Congregation Emanu-El, designed by the British
architect William Paxton, on the site of what is now the art
deco 450 Sutter Building, near Union Square. In 1864 the cornerstone
was laid for a great cathedral-like edifice, seating 1200
persons (the third largest synagogue in the nation)
and including features not unlike its Christian counterparts:
a choir loft; a huge medieval, gothic nave; and a large Magen
David stained glass window (instead of a Rose Window).
Rabbi Jacob Voorsanger, the long-time leader of Congregation
Emanu-El, was the Bishop of the Jews.
Most dramatic were the twin exterior towers, capped by bronze-plated
bulbous domes, rising 176 feet into the sky. These are visible
in Edwaerd Muybridge's panoramic photographs of San Francisco
taken in the 1890s from the roof of the Stanford mansion on
Nob Hill. As one of the most conspicuous architectural features
of San Francisco's skyline, Emanu-El's towers unmistakably
announced the presence of the Jewish community.
The other distinguished building
of the Jewish community in late Victorian San Francisco was
the new Congregation Sherith Israel,
completed in 1905, just before the Great Earthquake and, fortunately,
beyond the zone of the Great Fire. This building was actually
the fifth one for the Congregation (including rented quarters)
in less than fifty years, previous structures in the downtown
area having burned down in San Francisco's frequent fires.
Designed by a Mexican architect, Alfred Pissis, the structure
is capped by a large dome rising eighty feet from the synagogue
floor, resting on four large pendentives.
Temple Sherith Israel, 1905
Courtesy of Museum of American Jewish History
The synagogue design is inspired by Old World Sephardic
traditions, including intricate Honduran mahogany woodwork,
Italian stained glass windows depicting Biblical themes, and
elaborate fresco wall paintings. The entire interior is embellished
with calligraphic and other decorations inspired by Near East
traditions. The windows on the west side show Moses with the
Ten Commandments, with El Capitan and Half-Dome of Yosemite
National Park, as well as the American flag, visible in the
background to emphasize Sherith Israel's Western and American
heritage.
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2.
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In January 1847, the first U.S. district commissioner, Washington
Bartlett, who was descended from a prominent Sephardic
(of Spanish or North African origins) family, the Henriquez
of Charleston, South Carolina, changed the name of the town
of Yerba Buena to San Francisco