Timeline of the Jewish Community of Northern New Jersey

A group of immigrant Jews, including Nathan Barnert, established the B’nai B’rith Jephthah Lodge #143 in Paterson. The men organized philanthropic and communal activities to help new immigrants integrate into community life and to care for Jewish widows and orphans. 

Hoboken’s first synagogue, Adath Emuno, was opened with 55 members. These first Jewish settlers in the town, like those who came later, were merchants, salespeople, dealers, metalworkers, agents and bookkeepers. 

Nathan Barnert was elected Alderman of the Sixth Ward, the first Jew to hold elective office in Paterson. He served two terms and was later elected Mayor in 1883 and again in 1889. Barnert shifted from his mercantile business to devoting himself to his extensive real estate interests. He purchased or built mills and other commercial properties. He and his wife Miriam became important Jewish philanthropists. 

Philip and Bernard Katz, purveyors of wines and spirits on Main Street in Paterson, established the Katz Brothers Brewery at 83 Straight Street. The city’s third-most successful brewers, their Triple X and Canada Malt Ale were in high demand. 

Aaron, David, and Leopold Meyer, dry goods merchants from Newark, opened a branch store in Paterson on 179 Main Street. Named the “Boston Store,” the business flourished and expanded under a new name, Meyer Brothers. They developed an unparalleled reputation for excellence in goods and services. 

Congregation B’nai Israel was founded at Moshe Kassel’s home at 12 River Street in Paterson as an Orthodox synagogue. After several temporary locations, they purchased land at 12-14 Godwin Street and built a synagogue in 1897 known as the Big Shul. 

Romanian Jews formed the Ahavath Joseph Congregation, eventually moving into a newly built synagogue at 23 Godwin Street, Paterson in the early 1900s. It was known as the Little Shul.

Passaic’s immigration population centered on the Dundee section and its mills, the heart of which was Second Street (now Market Street), where the stores owned by Jewish merchants were located. Congregation B’nai Yaakov, the first synagogue in Passaic, was incorporated in 1889, with local businessman Moses Simon assuming the rabbi’s function until Rabbi Moshe Tzemach Lippman took charge. Congregation Tifereth Israel began as a small minyan of Jews from Galicia, Poland, on Second Street, moving to Madison Street in 1927 and to its current home on Passaic Avenue in 1966. 

J&A Steinberg Company Inc. started a grain, hay, straw, and feed business, eventually building a large grain elevator at 7th and Wall streets in Passaic in 1908

Congregation B’nai Jeshurun constructed a new building at the corner of Straight Street and Broadway in Paterson on land donated by Nathan Barnert. The synagogue, which began as Orthodox but was by now Reform, was renamed the Nathan Barnert Memorial Temple (now the Barnert Temple in Franklin Lakes). The two-towered building, in a Moorish style then popular for synagogues, had seating capacity of over 650, a pipe organ, and stained glass, soon became a city attraction. President McKinley was Nathan Barnert’s guest at a Passover Shabbat service there on April 20, 1900. 

M.H. Ellenbogen house on 15th Avenue in Paterson, designed by Fred Wesley Wentworth. (Source: The Life & Times of Fred Wesley Wentworth: The Architect Who Shaped Paterson, NJ and its People, page 50)

The Miriam Barnert Memorial Hebrew Free School  was founded in Paterson when a number of citizens recognized the need to provide supplementary religious education for Jewish children. Forty pupils were enrolled and sessions were first held in the Smith and Jackson building on Market Street. The school got its own building in 1904.

Austrian immigrant Jacob Fabian established a men’s clothing store in Paterson which became one of the most successful retailers in the city. His rebuilt store, like most in downtown, was designed by Fred Wesley Wentworth after the Great Fire of Paterson in 1902. Fabian would eventually go on to partner with Wentworth in building several movie houses and a synagogue. Reflecting his success, a German- Jewish immigrant and textile mill owner, M.H. Ellenbogen, was admitted to elite Hamilton Club and had his home designed by Wentworth.

Englewood held its first religious service, celebrating Rosh Hashanah, conducted by Benjamin Sher, an immigrant from Lithuania. The latter established the first congregation in Bergen County, Ahavath Torah.

Congregation Beth Abraham, Bayonne’s first synagogue, was founded at the home of Jacob Cohen on Cottage Street. They built their first permanent building on West 21st Street in 1905. 

Passaic Hebrew Institute was founded by Rabbi Moshe Lippman. In 1916, the school acquired their own building on Columbia Avenue. For two decades, it was the leading Jewish educational institution in Passaic, peaking at an enrollment of 400 students.