{"id":552,"date":"2011-04-13T19:45:05","date_gmt":"2011-04-13T23:45:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/"},"modified":"2015-01-28T15:05:17","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T20:05:17","slug":"merchants","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/maine\/portland\/merchants\/","title":{"rendered":"Middle Merchants"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #000000\">The Middle Merchants: Portland\u2019s Jewish Mercantile Community<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\"><em>by Zack Barowitz (April 2011)<\/em><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">In the mid-1970s my dad landed a summer teaching job at what was then the Portland School of Art. And from that time up till the early \u201880s, when I was a child and new to Portland as a Summer Person from New York City we slowly became aware of a handful of Jewish merchants in the downtown\/Old Port area. Among them were:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\"><a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2011\/04\/fig-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-898\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2011\/04\/fig-2-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2011\/04\/fig-2-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2011\/04\/fig-2-1024x574.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Levinsky\u2019s, a large rabbit warren of a clothing store where our local friends would do their back to school shopping. They\u2019d buy Levis corduroys\u00a0 and web belts (they were not allowed to wear denim jeans at their school).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">Klamen\u2019s bottles on Fore Street. Klamen\u2019s was well stocked with antique bottles to be sure, but the proprietor showed very little interest in selling bottles and a bitter distaste for customer service.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">Cinamon Brothers was a large multi-story used furniture store whose proprietors and dusty wares provided, perhaps unfairly, my mental image of the Collier brothers later in life.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\"><a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2011\/04\/fig-3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-896 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2011\/04\/fig-3-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2011\/04\/fig-3-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2011\/04\/fig-3-1024x574.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Zeitman Grocery, also on Fore Street. Mr. Zeitman bemused my father one day by chastising him for buying bread from the Port Bake House a then new and proto-yuppie bakery. \u201cWhat are buying that crap for? This is the finest bread you can buy!\u201d He said pointing to the very soft, pre-packaged bags of J.J. Nissen bread.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">Sukowitch hardware was another fave, my parents liked to find merchandise that had been there since the \u201950 in original boxes with original prices.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">Model Market sold packaged and imported foods and had a good wine selection. At the time Champagne was enough of a novelty item that when the proprietor, Saul Goldberg, sold my mom a bottle he advised her to \u201cchill it.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">A little context of time period, in the late \u201970s and into the early \u201980s the prevailing ethos of Portland was overwhelming white and predominantly Yankee and Anglo-Saxon although with a sizable Roman Catholic population and other ethnic pockets to be sure. While house hunting, my parents can recall a curious phrase being repeated by a real-estate broker who was showing them summer rental properties in Prouts Neck.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u201cThis is a very <em>exclusive <\/em>area,\u201d said the broker.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u201cThat\u2019s okay,\u201d said my mom.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u201cThis is also an <em>exclusive <\/em>neighborhood.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u201cUh-huh.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u201cAnd this too is an <em>exclusive <\/em>section.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u201cWell, that is fine,\u201d said my Mom, <\/span>\u201c<span style=\"color: #000000\">but we aren\u2019t particularly \u2018exclusive\u2019 people.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">It wasn\u2019t until afterwards that we realized that \u201cexclusive\u201d was real-estate code for \u201cno Jews.\u201d Still it was nice of the broker to take the time to show us the property.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Coming from New York City where \u201ceveryone\u201d was Jewish being in Portland made me feel quite alien. Not that we sensed much prejudice for being Jewish, rather the discrimination I suffered was for being a Yankees fan; perhaps it amounted to the same thing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">As for the Jewish merchants, well I had simply assumed that they had come from Mars or at the very least taken a wrong turn one day.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\"><a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2011\/04\/fig-8.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-900\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2011\/04\/fig-8-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2011\/04\/fig-8-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2011\/04\/fig-8-1024x574.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>In fact that is not the case. From the early 1900s to the early 1960s Portland\u2019s Jewish community was not only sizable but visible, not by horns or black hats and beards, but by the merchant district around the area of Middle, Fore, and Franklin Streets. As one might expect, bakeries, butchers, tailors, shoemakers, and even kosher restaurants served the community. One old-timer whom I spoke to told me that there were three bakeries when he was a kid: \u201cone you went to for their bread, another for their pastries, and the third was pretty good with both.\u201d But apart from serving the basic needs of the Jewish community there were clothing stores, shoe stores, a tire company, manufacturing, a bank, and a social club.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">One manufacturer, Si Glazer, who made clothing, was given a contract to make t-shirts for prison inmates; the order was for Mediums but Si had many small shirts on hand. So he tore out the labels that read \u201cSmall\u201d and replaced them with labels reading \u201cMedium\u201d as he figured that this was one set of customers who were not in a position to complain.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">In searching for colorful stories, the research I am doing is not easy. As my target population is made up largely of people in their 80s and 90s there are certain challenges. This is as much an exercise in gerontology as it is history, one gentleman I spoke to deterred me from an interview with the claim:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u201cMy memory is not too good.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u201cWell,\u201d I told him, \u201ca little memory is a lot more than nothing,\u201d and would he consent to an interview.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u201cCan you send me something that explains what you are doing any better,\u201d he asked.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u201cYes,\u201d I would be happy to send him something. \u201cHow would you like me to send it?<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u201cHow do I want you to send it?! US Mail!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u201cVery well,\u201d I said, \u201cMay I have your address?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u201cWell, how did you get my phone number?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u201cFrom the phone book.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u201cWell, you can get my address from there too!\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Apart from collecting lively stories, when I set out on this research I had two basic questions, the first is where did Portland\u2019s Jewish merchants come from?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Most Portland Jews are not from Mars but of Eastern European extraction who came in through Ellis Island and up through New York and Boston. Indeed many came to Portland as peddlers. One retailer New England Army supply began as hoss n\u2019team and their first \u201cstore\u201d was the barn. Another peddler eschewed the pushcart for a rowboat and served the ships.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Throughout the 1940s and \u201850s the mercantile community remained strong, as many jobs were not available to Jews. One is reminded of the famous speech delivered by Rod Steiger in the movie the <em>Pawnbroker <\/em>based on the Edward Lewis Wallent novel:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #000000\">You go out and you buy a piece of cloth and you cut that cloth in two and you go out and sell it for a penny more that you paid for it, and then you run right back out and buy another piece of cloth and cut it into three pieces and sell it for three pennies profit . . . .you must immediately run out and get yourself a still larger piece of cloth and so you repeat this process over and over . . . you just go on and on and on repeating this process over the centuries . . . and suddenly you make a grand discovery: you have a mercantile heritage . . .<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">In the 1960s New England Army Supply Company changed their name to \u201cLevinsky\u2019s.\u201d As Phil Levinsky told me, \u201cPresident Kennedy made everyone a first-class American.\u201d And in retail the shorter name was a plus. There was one drawback to the New Frontier. President Kennedy did not wear a hat and effectively ended hat-wearing among men. Levinsky\u2019s large inventory of hats was made instantly worthless.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Which brings me to the second question. Where did all the Jewish merchants go?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\"><a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2011\/04\/fig-15.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-899\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2011\/04\/fig-15-168x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"168\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2011\/04\/fig-15-168x300.jpg 168w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2011\/04\/fig-15-574x1024.jpg 574w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2011\/04\/fig-15.jpg 1832w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 168px) 100vw, 168px\" \/><\/a>The urban renewal movement transformed the dense urban fabric around Franklin and Middle Street into an urban highway; this was the final death knell for many ethnic communities in that area. But unlike Italian-American neighborhoods which remain more stable, Jewish immigrant neighborhoods tend to have a shorter life-span. Social liberalization and the availability of a broader range of professions spelt the end to the Jewish merchant district of Middle Street (just two business remain downtown from the old times Wiggon, the office supply store and Hub furniture, albeit in a \u201cnew\u201d location). And the Jewish Community Center saw its decline in that period as well.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">So ironically, it was not physical changes to the neighborhood that led to the demise of Portland\u2019s brick and mortar Jewish presence. Urban renewal was only a tertiary cause and did not have the devastating effect on the community that it did on the nearby Italian and Armenian neighborhoods. And I don\u2019t sense much sentimentality toward the district.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Perhaps Jewish Middle Street is remembered more as an occupational ghetto than as \u201cthe old neighborhood\u201d people may retain fondness for individual stores but perhaps the district as a whole was exclusive, in a bad way.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">So the primary cause of the decline was simple attrition. People just wandered away when they got the opportunity, as is consistent with Diaspora. However, many did not wander far and ended up quite close together in the Woodfords area which today boasts the Levey Day School, two synagogues, the JCA, a <em>mikva<\/em>, and a funeral home.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">I think there is a tendency to think of Jewish history in Maine as somehow being secret, private, and apart from the predominant culture but in fact, Maine towns did have physical highly visible Jewish neighborhoods, mini-Lower East Sides if you will, which met the needs of the community for as long as was necessary and then in a very practical manner, they just went away.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Middle Merchants: Portland\u2019s Jewish Mercantile Community by Zack Barowitz (April 2011) In the mid-1970s my dad landed a summer teaching job at what was then the Portland School of Art. And from that time up till the early \u201880s, when I was a child and new to Portland as a Summer Person from New&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1764,"featured_media":0,"parent":1233,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/552"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1764"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1235,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/552\/revisions\/1235"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}