The Real NYC #46 - The Museum at Eldrige Street
When I was a teacher at New York City Museum School, one quarter of the ninth-grade social studies year was taught as a comparative religions course. Students were taken to visit houses of worship for all major (and some not so major) religions. When it came time to Judaism, the place students visited was the Eldridge Street Museum . Why here, out of all of the synagogues in New York? Well, Eldridge Street has a historical significance along with its religious history. The immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe began to expand in the 1880’s. In New York, the Lower East Side became the center of life for this growing population. In 1887 the Eldridge Street Synagogue, which grew out of the first Russian-Jewish temple, was formed. It flourished for over 50 years, but by the end of World War II, life in New York had changed. Jews, like many other immigrants, started to leave Manhattan for the outer boroughs and the suburbs. The Jewish community on the Lower East Side shrank...