On Middle Ground: A History of the Jews of Baltimore

by Eric L. Goldstein, Deborah R. Weiner

A model of Jewish community history that will enlighten anyone interested in Baltimore and its past. Winner of the Southern Jewish Historical Society Book Prize by the Southern Jewish Historical Society; Finalist of the American Jewish Studies Book Award by the Jewish Book Council National Jewish Book Awards In 1938, Gustav Brunn and his family fled Nazi Germany and settled in Baltimore. Brunn found a job at McCormick’s Spice Company but was fired after three days when, according to family legend, the manager discovered he was Jewish. He started his own successful business using a spice mill he brought over from Germany and developed a blend especially for the seafood purveyors across the street. Before long, his Old Bay spice blend would grace kitchen cabinets in virtually every home in Maryland. The Brunns sold the business in 1986. Four years later, Old Bay was again sold―to McCormick. In On Middle Ground , the first truly comprehensive history of Baltimore’s Jewish community, Eric L. Goldstein and Deborah R. Weiner describe not only the formal institutions of Jewish life but also the everyday experiences of families like the Brunns and of a diverse Jewish population that included immigrants and natives, factory workers and department store owners, traditionalists and reformers. The story of Baltimore Jews―full of absorbing characters and marked by dramas of immigration, acculturation, and assimilation―is the story of American Jews in microcosm. But its contours also reflect the city’s unique culture. Goldstein and Weiner argue that Baltimore’s distinctive setting as both a border city and an immigrant port offered opportunities for advancement that made it a magnet for successive waves of Jewish settlers. The authors detail how the city began to attract enterprising merchants during the American Revolution, when it thrived as one of the few ports remaining free of British blockade. They trace Baltimore’s meteoric rise as a commercial center, which drew Jewish newcomers who helped the upstart town surpass Philadelphia as the second-largest American city. They explore the important role of Jewish entrepreneurs as Baltimore became a commercial gateway to the South and later developed a thriving industrial scene. Readers learn how, in the twentieth century, the growth of suburbia and the redevelopment of downtown offered scope to civic leaders, business owners, and real estate developers. From symphony benefactor Joseph Meyerhoff to Governor Marvin Mandel and trailblazing state senator Rosalie Abrams, Jews joined the ranks of Baltimore’s most influential cultural, philanthropic, and political leaders while working on the grassroots level to reshape a metro area confronted with the challenges of modern urban life. Accessibly written and enriched by more than 130 illustrations, On Middle Ground reveals that local Jewish life was profoundly shaped by Baltimore’s “middleness”―its hybrid identity as a meeting point between North and South, a major industrial center with a legacy of slavery, and a large city with a small-town feel.

398 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 28, 2018

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly researched history that earned it's name; certainly proved Baltimore Jewry's position as more or less "middle of the road."

I was also impressed, having read Goldstein's THE PRICE OF WHITNESS, that here, he (along with Weiner) was more organically able to probe the fact that there are very few definitive answers about the tides of history. It was very much a cornerstone of this book to state that any social change, from schisms in religious Judaism to the introduction of different political ideologies to relations with non-Jews, was a complicated matter. Maybe going through all the pieces made the book a little bit of an exhaustive reading experience. :P

I write "it went through all of the pieces," and yet my own relationship with Baltimore Judaism, perhaps, is only encapsulated by one or sentence fragments in the epilogue about Jews settling in the suburb of Towson and Reconstructionist synagogues finding a place here around the time I was born. Ironically, my childhood shul is located in Roland Park, which is much better known in this book for excluding Jews from the neighborhood when it was founded. (I'd also point out that in terms of Jewish relations with the broader community, the authors mostly stuck with the white establishment and African Americans. In today's day and age, surely there is more diversity to talk about, even if it didn't exist in large numbers throughout Baltimore's history.)

I was born in Sinai Hospital, chronicled here as an intensely Jewish institution that also reached out to Black people and women more often in the early days. My mother worked there, and remembers the "Save Soviet Jewry" signs. Otherwise my parents were transplants, so they have no direct or familial ties to Jewish Maryland, be it peddlers and merchants from yesteryear, or the later professions, civic and cultural institutions as time went on.

Part of this book is about the general history of American Jews, and the other part is about how Baltimore specifically shaped its community. As one of the US's first settlements, it bore prominence as a trade port for a long time. As a city midway between the north and south of the east coast, it became an urban center with a small town feel, according to the authors. Religious conservatism was a bigger deal here than in many cities, which actually helped keep Jews together as a community even as they moved further away, physically and figuratively, from their immigrant roots. On the other side, they were perhaps slightly less amenable to embracing the racist status quo of their southern neighbors. Not to say they didn't involve themselves in institutional racism, but there's been a large concentration of both Jews and Blacks here, so they interact more often and find common ground.

I also appreciated all of the Bawlmer Jew namedropping, from Hadassah founder Henrietta Szold to famous composer Philip Glass; didn't know his father owned a shop here! Also nice to get to know some people, especially those shrouded more by history, like Elkin Solomon, the first recorded Jew of the area who served in the Continental Army, to Jacob I. Cohen, who introduced the "Jew Bill" legislation that allowed for Jews to serve Maryland in public office (granted, he did it mostly for his own advancement,) to Betsy Friedenwald Wiesenfeld, who started charities for Jewish women to join so they'd have their own way of benefiting society.

An enlightening read about 250 years of a microcosm of American society that happened to be my first community. :D

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

lots of info with an occasional nugget of useful and interesting fact. otherwise, it reads like a master's thesis.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading for research — very helpful!