Since they originally started settling in Taunton in the late 1800s, the Jewish people have contributed greatly to the cultural fabric of the city and continue to do so.







Congregation Agudath Achim, with its synagogue on Winthrop Street, is now celebrating 100 years of existence in Taunton. Members of the synagogue are marking the centennial by looking back at the history of Jews in Taunton, revisiting the memories left behind by the founders of the congregation, and forging ahead with traditions of Judaism.

Since they originally started settling in Taunton in the late 1800s, the Jewish people have contributed greatly to the cultural fabric of the city and continue to do so.



Congregation Agudath Achim, with its synagogue on Winthrop Street, is now celebrating 100 years of existence in Taunton. Members of the synagogue are marking the centennial by looking back at the history of Jews in Taunton, revisiting the memories left behind by the founders of the congregation, and forging ahead with traditions of Judaism.



“In Taunton, it has always been a commitment of basically a small group of people to preserve the Jewish faith and its traditions,” said Kathy Novick, chairwoman for the Congregation Agudath Achim Centennial Committee. “It’s a very home-centered religion in many ways — a lot of the holidays you celebrate at home as a family. But you worship as a group. It’s that core group of people, who do community service, and raise our children to grow up to be good people. In Judaism, the way to leave the world is to leave a good name.”







Early records of Jews in Taunton



The history of Jewish people in Taunton began in colonial times, when a young Portuguese merchant named Aaron Lopes arrived in America in 1762 but was denied citizenship in Rhode Island; he then came to a Taunton court to become the only Jew naturalized as a British subject in Massachusetts. It was more than 100 years later before another Jewish name surfaced in Taunton records, when Adolphus Henry Levi was admitted to the bar in Superior Court in 1874, although he was not a permanent resident of the city.



The first permanent Jewish resident of Taunton was Moses Goldstein, a young man from Elizabethgrad, Russia, who came to the Silver City in 1883, selling goods to raise money to pay for the passage of his parents and brothers. Goldstein, who came after Russia’s Czar Alexander III persecuted and oppressed the Jews, lived on Cottage Street in the Whittenton area of Taunton.



“He was the patriarch of Goldstein’s store that still remains in Whittenton,” Novick said. “Isn’t that incredible? Goldstein was part of the massive influx of Jews who came after persecution, repression, and attempts to force Russian culture on them.”



Mija Almeida, the chairperson for the Board of Directors for Congregation Agudath Achim, said most of the Jewish migration to Taunton resulted from the pogroms, or organized massacres, directed at Jewish people in Russia and eastern Europe.



“The majority of the Jewish people in Taunton are of Eastern European and Russian decent,” said Almeida, who along with Novick helped compile the research completed years ago by Shoshanah Garshick of the history of Jews in Taunton. “America was the place to go, it was the land of dreams for everybody. And Jews were businesspeople and they could make business here.”



Goldstein was followed by several more, including Abraham Klein, a shoemaker on Whittenton Street, who arrived in 1891; along with Wulf Grossman, a West Water Street tailor, and Simon Swig, manager of the Taunton Evening Herald, who both came around 1893.



The Taunton Hebrew Fraternal Association, the first Jewish group in the city, formed in 1905. According to the preamble of its constitution, the purpose was “to establish a synagogue for the Hebrews of Taunton and to establish a cemetery.”







Founding of the congregation



Mount Nebo is the Jewish cemetery that was originally established in Taunton in 1907, located on Glebe Street. Evidently, it was the more pressing of the Taunton Hebrew Fraternal Association’s two goals.



“They were practical people,” Almeida said. “They needed a place to bury their dead.”



After the congregation officially formed, the land for the synagogue was purchased in 1912 for the sum of “one dollar and other valuable considerations,” according to historical records. Before the synagogue was built, groups of Jewish families met for worship at each other’s homes and at the Polish Club in Whittenton, Almeida said.



Jacob Bernstein was one of the founding members who helped buy the land, she said. To help pay for the construction of the synagogue, some of the women in the congregation took leadership to raise funds, including Fanny Swig, Pauline Swig and Annie Goldstein.



The laying of the cornerstone for the synagogue took place on July 13, 1913. While many more wealthy Jews vied for the honor, a young man named Charles Tanenbaum gave his entire life’s savings of $98 to the congregation for the honor of laying the cornerstone. “He spent all his money for that,” Almeida said.



The first spiritual leader serving the congregation was Israel Faber, a kosher butcher who came to the city in 1909, acting in the absence of a rabbi. The congregation started as an Orthodox Jewish organization.



“The synagogue used to be segregated by gender,” said Novick, pointing out the second level of the synagogue, which was once reserved for women. “There may have been curtains separating them. If the men saw them, they may have been distracted from their prayers.”



The congregation later transitioned into a Conservative Jewish congregation, before recently becoming an “egalitarian, unaffiliated Jewish congregation.”



The longest tenure of the congregation’s rabbis was that of Rabbi Baruch Korff, from 1954 through 1972. Under his leadership, the congregation built a Jewish Community House in 1957, which now stands on High Street.







Predecessors’ words



Each week during a service, members of Congregation Agudath Achim honor those who came before them in what is called a yahrzeit.



“On the anniversary of a death, we pay tribute to members of the congregation who have died,” Novick said. “It’s important to remember who came before you.”



Novick and Almeida recently edited a booklet as part of the centennial celebration called “In Their Own Words,” which features the memories of the founders of the Congregation Agudath Achim, written by descendants.



One man featured in an entry is Abraham Cooperstein, who came to the United States from Russia in 1904 and became a self-employed entrepreneur.



“In the early years after the synagogue was built and friends or relatives came to visit from another city, the highlight of the visit was showing off the new synagogue,” Cooperstein’s entry said. “Out of town visitors were always escorted to the synagogue with pride. Everyone was proud of the grand new synagogue.”



Another was about Louis J. Antine, the congregation’s first president, who came to the country at age 17 from Russia to settle in Taunton, first living in a boarding house in Whittenton before becoming a successful businessman. The entry mentioned that at the boarding house, Antine roomed with Christy Matheson, a famous major league pitcher.



At a recent Purim celebration at the Community House, students from the congregation’s Hebrew School wrote about the accounts and plastered their writings on the wall.



Throughout the years, there have been innumerable successful Jews in the Silver City, not just in the business sector, but also in civic life. Perhaps most notably was Benjamin Friedman, who served as Taunton’s mayor from 1963 to 1970 and then again from 1976 to 1978.











Congregation today



There are now about 75 member families at Congregation Agudath Achim, Almeida said, while at one point it was around 160 families, including neighboring towns.



Novick said one of the goals of the centennial celebrations is to reach out to the greater community.



“There are a lot of people in Taunton who don’t even know there is a synagogue here, this beautiful building,” she said. “There might be misunderstandings about the Jews. So one of our goals was to invite them in.”



Almeida mentioned the congregation’s participation in this winter’s Lights On celebration around Taunton Green, and a recent Martin Luther King Jr. Day event at the synagogue.



Almeida said an upcoming community seder is taking place on April 11 at 6 p.m. at the 133 High St. Community House.



“There are a lot of people in this community who are Jewish and are not members of the synagogue for one reason or another,” Almeida said. “We want to let them know they are invited to this.”



For more information on the community seder, email Almeida at mbalmeida@aol.com.



A passover event is also taking place at Taunton’s Baptist Church of all Nations on March 29 at 7:30 p.m.



On May 5, a 100-year rededication of the synagogue is set for 9 a.m., which includes a service, speakers and kiddush, or blessing. “In many ways it’ll be a rededication of ourselves to the synagogue,” Almeida said.



Then, on June 30, there will be a reunion celebration for Congregation Agudath Achim, featuring special guest — the congregation’s former longtime cantor — Stanley Lipp, along with emcee Marc Antine, descendant of Louis Antine.



“It’s going to be a nice sit-down dinner at the community house,” Novick said. “We’ll be lighting 100 candles around the room for the 100 years. We are still trying to find more people who were part of our synagogue to participate, because we are trying to highlight as many generations as far back as we can go.”



For more on the reunion, email Phyllis Rubin at phyllisrubin@comcast.net.