Today is February 17, 2011 and this is the first post to the Trenton Jewish Project blog. What is the Trenton Jewish Project? It will be whatever you the readers of the blog make it. This all started for me a couple of years ago, when we had a fellow congregant over to our house for the second night of Passover. Sylvia was a native Trentonian (we are not), and she told stories of such a vibrant Jewish community in Trenton that I was intrigued. A few months later, I joined Sylvia and another native at Trentoniana at the Trenton Public Library, where the archives of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Trenton reside. Ozzie Zuckerman is the man most responsible for the thousands of pictures and documents that are part of the collection at the Library.
I've been to the library two more times since, to take pictures, make audio recordings and go through the archives...but I've just touched the surface.
I have interviewed about a half dozen people who remember Trenton as it was in the 30's, 40's and 50's and I seek to do more interviews, eventually producing a documentary that will teach others about what no longer exists.
We are having an event at Adath Israel Congregation in Lawrenceville on Sunday, March 13th, 2011 that is really a kickoff event. Author and Professor Michael Aaron Rockland, from the Americna Studies Department at Rutgers University is going to be talking about the book he co-authored with his wife, Patricia Ard,
The Jews of New Jersey, A Pictorial History. After the lecture, I'll be showing a small tease of the video on which I'm working and will show some of the pictures that I have copied from the archives.
There is a pressing need to identify many of the people in the photographs in the archives and we will start doing that on March 13th. There are many other things that we as the Jewish Community of Central New Jersey can do to save the legacy of the Jews of Trenton and that will be discussed on that day also.
Bring your pictures, bring your memories, and help us remember a time that is no longer.
For more information, please e-mail me at:
trentonjewishproject@gmail.com
Thanks,
Ed
This is an album of photos of Downtown Trenton from the 1938 and 1958 tax photos of the City of Trenton. Anyone who lived downtown at the time should recognize many of the business and institutions.
