A Boy Scout Remembers

Sorry about the delay between posts.  Baseball and life sometimes gets in the way of pet projects.  Last week, when the weather was so beautiful, I spent a morning shooting video of Downtown Trenton and went down and walked around in the area bounded by South Broad, Market and Cooper Street.   It's amazing to think that there was such a high concentration of Jews in such a small area.  Other than Broad and Market, Cooper Street is the only intersection that still exists from the bygone days.  The new courthouse is going up on the Northwest side of the street.  I have to wonder, if, when they were excavating behind the old courthouse any artifacts turned up from Baran's or Benny Hock's or maybe even a racing form from Waldman's Barber Shop?

I received an interesting e-mail a few weeks ago from Norm Denard, who sent along some information that he had originally sent to Ozzie Zuckerman six years ago, concerning the Boy Scouts troops from various temples and synagogues in the Trenton area during the 1940’s. 

When I was growing up in the Northwest Philadelphia suburbs in the 1960’s, the only Boy Scouts troops near us were sponsored by local churches and I think I lasted a couple of meetings and one campout.  Professionally, I’ve produced videos for the Central New Jersey Council’s Spirit of America awards.  Last year, a Muslim imam gave the opening benediction and a Muslim Eagle Scout gave a wonderful speech. 

I did a little research and learned that there is a strong link between the Boy Scouts in America and Jews.   There is a National Jewish Committee on Scouting and it details how close that bond is.  


In fact, the Boy Scouts of America was founded in 1910 and the next year, a Jewish financier named Mortimer Schiff gave almost $5,000 and was one of the fist major donors to the BSA.   The first Jewish troop followed 2 years later, at the 92nd Street "Y" in New York, and by 1957 there were 1,367 troops chartered to Jewish organizations.

Enough background, here is the note that Norm sent to Ozzie.   See if you recognize any of the names and check your photo albums to see if you have any pictures that we can share.

As an 83 year old former Trenton native (editor's note-Not sure if this makes Norm 89 now?), I’ve enjoyed your columns very much.

I believe you covered some of the Jewish Scouting in Trenton previously, but I think there’s a bit more history.  Perhaps you were limited by space considerations, or otherwise. So I’d like to add my memories of people and places

There was Troop 6, sponsored by the YMHA.  I think Joe Fishberg was the Scoutmaster.

Walter Lustgarten, Erwin Fehr, Larry Pincus and Harold Bulit and Hemy Donskoy were  members.  There were others I’m  sure.  Those who went to Camp Pahaquarra called their tent group Shloffshane near the river bank.

I eventually transferred to a new Troop 93 which had been formed by combining troops from Adath Israel and Har Sinai.  Adath Israel’s troop had been led by Scoutmaster Dave Traub and included Abner and Leon Robinson, Irving Felton, Sol Lassoff and Arnold Milgaten among others.  They had an association with the 112th Field Artilllery in Lawrence and oftern rode the horses there.

Har Sinai’s troop was led by Scoutmaster Ted Pierson.  He left for Syracuse a year or so later and Julian Goodstein became our scoutmaster.  Julian was also a concert pianist and taught piano.  He was a respected and active leader of the troop for many years.  Bill Nochumson who was a surveyor helped many scouts with their mapping requirements.

Leon  (“Red”) Levy was also a Scoutmaster.  (Perhaps Bernard Green, also)

Members included Fred Holtzberg, Harry and Isaac Garb, Jerry Garb, Newton Milner, Norton Milner and Newton Dana, Jack Hoenig, Marvin Swern, Jerry Robinson, Leonard Silverstein, Stan and Len Milner, Jerry Urken, Alvin Cohen, Barry Rednor, Bob Green,  Alvin Krasne, Ralph Lebair, “Petey” Goldberg, Hemy Donskoy, Stanley Siegle and Larry Felton .

Every year the local scout council held a spring “camporal”; sometimes in the woods above the Katzenbach School for the Deaf, later at Washingeon Crossing State Park.  We camped out and competed in various scouting activities for a weekend.

I am sure I’ve forgotten many names, so perhaps a few others can make additions and corrections…If there are enough survivors around, perhaps we could have a reunion.

 If you have any Boy Scout memories, please share them with the community, by clicking on the comment button below or you can e-mail them to trentonjewishproject@gmail.com and I will share them.

Thanks,

Ed

A Notes Column and "The Curtain Falls" on our interview with Sol Weinstein

The response continues to be terrific from all of you who are viewing the Trenton Jewish Project online.  We are over 2750 page views during our short time in existence.  When you consider our demographics don't exactly include the highest of the high-tech, that's very impressive. 

Each week, I've been receiving more and more e-mails from people around the country and around the world and this week I want to share some of those with you.


The most heartening correspondence comes from Judee Weinstein, who lives in California and has been watching our multi-part interview with her father, Sol "Pumpy" Weinstein.  She writes,

"Thanks so much for interviewing my Dad! I am sitting here in San Jose, California, enjoying watching this video of you and my father. I have learned things that I never heard from my father! I wish it went on longer!
You have a great way of talking to people!"

Well, Judee, you're in luck.  There's one more installment of our interview.  In this segment, Sol and I talk about writing the Oy-Oy-Seven series of parodies and how that propelled him out of Trenton and into the Hollywood scene.   Make sure you watch the end of the video, where Sol serenades us with his own special version of "Bluebird of Happiness."  It's not to be missed.









Bill Schulman in Florida has been sending me some wonderful pictures of YMHA basketball teams.  In fact, here's one that he just sent.   He also sent some names that go with this picture, but why not make this interactive?   E-mail me if you can identify anyone in the shot.  Next week, I'll reveal the names that Bill sent me.

Andrew Wertz commented on this picture.

"it's really amazing to see the rt. 1 overpass there. thank you so much for sharing these."

Does anyone know what year Rte. 1 was re-aligned?  When I interviewed Edie Gordon recently she told me that Ira Keats had been doing some research on Old Trenton years ago and had talked to one of the city planners, a man by the name of Frank Elliott (who when I google his name shows up as a past President of Rider University), who said that re-aligning Route 1 and dividing the city was a mistake.






Steven Ramm, who now lives in Philadelphia must have attended the June 4th presentation about the 1955 flood and checked out the blog, providing us with these two comparison shots of his family's house on Morningside Drive.

 Steve also sent along some shots of his parents' store, Antheil's Shoes, which I'll share in a future blog entry.






 And Art Finkle shared this picture of Samuel Finkle's men's store at Spring and Willow Streets.  Love the car parked on the street. My best guess is that this picture is from 1934, because the Langhorne Speedway poster in the right hand side of the photo shows a date of Saturday, April 28th.  Doing a check of the calendars, the only other possibilities were 1928 and 1945.

Art also sent along this picture of the Class of 1933 Trenton Central High School photo in front of Mt. Vernon, Virginia.  Recognize anyone here?

Keep checking  out the photo galleries linked on the right side of the blog.  I've updated and tagged many of the photos with ID's that followers have provided.  E-mail me with a picture number and let me know if you know anyone in the photos.

Until next time.


Ed