Wisconsin Historical Society
Morris Heifetz, a leader from congregation Beth Israel in Madison, blows the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
Many people think of Wisconsin as a very German state, even though plenty of Irish and Scandinavian immigrants arrived here during the great waves of migration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. African Americans established several settlements in southern Wisconsin as well. Back in 1999, current Madison poet laureate Oscar Mireles published a book called I Didn’t Know There Were Latinos in Wisconsin. And the state’s Jewish population hasn’t really received its due, either.
Jews in Wisconsin, by Sheila Terman Cohen, is the latest in a series of books from the Wisconsin Historical Society Press highlighting the history of various ethnic groups in the state. German Jews, Cohen reports, began to arrive in the state along with other German refugees in the 1850s. This surge came not from specific persecution of Jews, but from turmoil ensuing from the failed German revolution of 1848. German settlers were in fact encouraged to come to the brand-new state of Wisconsin (the state even published newspaper ads in Germany). Like their gentile counterparts, most Jews arrived via Milwaukee and stayed there. And while Milwaukee remained the hub of Judaism in Wisconsin, some newcomers slowly began looking for opportunities elsewhere in the state.
Wisconsin Historical Society
A 1919 "Americanization" pageant performed by new Jewish citizens in Milwaukee in 1919. The woman wearing the white blouse is believed to be Golda Meier, future prime minister of Israel.
Who would have guessed that Appleton had the second-largest Jewish population in the late 1800s? It was the home of immigrant Eric Harry Weiss (later, better known as Harry Houdini). Edna Ferber, author of Showboat, So Big and Giant, was also from Appleton. Wisconsinites may know that fact more readily than they recognize that Ferber was Jewish.
The book does have some of that “fun fact” quality (Did you know that The Settlement Cookbook, one of the first of the best-seller culinary guides, grew out of the Jewish Community Center in Milwaukee and was first sold there as a fundraiser?). But Cohen also does a good job of establishing across the board — from small towns to big cities, from statehood to the 21st century, from tiny retail stores to positions in government — how much Jews have contributed to the state.
Religious persecution of Jews persisted here, though, as well. Cohen details several eras of anti-Semitic fervor. But at crucial junctures, Wisconsin did the right thing. In the 1920s, when many colleges limited the number of Jewish students accepted, the University of Wisconsin did not. The UW-Madison branch of Hillel, begun in 1924, is the second-oldest in the nation.
It is ever more crucial in the current political climate to recognize how diversity has always contributed to our society. Ignorance of other cultures — the shrugging off of history — leads to easy stereotyping, untutored opinions. Whether you read this book for fun facts or to absorb the whole fabric of Jews in Wisconsin, Cohen’s stories are important reading for any student of state history, and indeed, anyone claiming to be a Badger.
