Timeline of the Jewish Community of Northern New Jersey

Between 1840 and 1860, the first Jews began to settle in Paterson, a city which had been founded in 1792 and became the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution. 

This small group was primarily composed of German-Jewish merchants and professionals. They met for Sabbath and festival worship in individual homes; some traveled to New York City for services and observances.

A group of Paterson Jews organized Congregation B’nai Jeshurun of the Town of Paterson, a traditional Orthodox synagogue. The trustees, Edward Harris, Sigmund Blunauer, Barnhard Raskin, Abraham Steiber, and Jack Rheim submitted a petition of incorporation to the state. Their petition was approved by the New Jersey Legislature in December 1847, making this the first recognized synagogue in the state. The following day, Dr. Joseph Ashman of New York deeded a small tract of land in Clifton for use as a cemetery. 

Nathan Barnert, a Jewish businessman, established a tailoring business at 149 Main Street in Paterson. Born in Posen, Prussia, in 1838, Barnert immigrated to New York at age eleven. He was an ambitious, resourceful, energetic and adventurous young man who went off to California in search of gold. He found this to be a risky venture and soon became a peddler selling soap, candles, and sewing materials to the miners from his backpack. Later he acquired a horse and wagon and added items like spades, lanterns and kerosene. By then he was wealthier than most of the miners. During the Civil War, his Paterson tailoring business made uniforms for the Union Army. 

In 1862, a woolen mill was opened in Passaic by one of the city’s first Jewish settlers. When Jacob Basch, a native of Bohemia, opened his business, Jacob Basch & Co., he became one of the founding fathers of Passaic’s textile industry. 

Nathan Barnert married Miriam Phillips, the daughter of a wealthy English-Jewish family. Her father, Henry L. Phillips, was a furrier on Grand Street in New York City and a property owner in Paterson. It was said Miriam “went through the world doing good, leaving behind her a path of light.” It became one of Miriam’s practices every Friday afternoon to invite the poorer Jewish citizens of the city to her doorstep, where she would dispense money for the Sabbath meal. She also made it her custom to pay the dowries of local young Jewish women, and to aid poor Jews who were sick.

Around the end of the Civil War, a group of Jews in Jersey City began to gather for study and prayer. They formalized their community under the name the Isaac Ephraim Congregation, then became Beth Israel Congregation, and Temple Beth-El in 1871. The young congregation met downtown at 96 Montgomery Street or nearby on Fourth Street.

As the Jewish community in Paterson continued to grow, they purchased 22 acres of land in Totowa for a cemetery. The establishment of Mount Nebo Cemetery signified a sense of permanence of. the community.

Jacob Levi, a German-Jewish immigrant, purchased a small garment factory on River Street in Paterson and established the Manhattan Shirt Factory. The company grew so rapidly that he brought in partners - his brother, Louis Levi, and Benjamin Wechsler. By 1874, the company had built a larger mill on River Street and soon opened plants in Passaic and other locations in the northeast. 

The Paterson City Directory listed more than 85 Jewish-owned businesses at this time. Jewish merchants had established themselves as jewelers, shoemakers, tailors, bakers, blacksmiths, butchers, clerks, hairdressers, grocers, saloon keepers, shirtmakers, silk dyers, carpenters, watchmakers, machinists, soapmakers and apothecaries. Jewish-owned businesses also included millinery shops, stationary stores, dry goods stores, and variety stores. 

The Jewish community of North Jersey, still a small minority, reflected local needs as Paterson transitioned from a small town into a multifaceted city.