An Unorganized History
While Bowling Green's history as a settlement dates back to the 1770s, there has always been a scarce Jewish presence in town, with Bowling Green often acting as a satellite to larger Jewish communities in Nashville, Owensboro, and Louisville. The earliest Jewish settlers would not arrive in Bowling Green until the mid-19th century.
Located along the Barren River, much of the city's early history is tied to steamboat and railway traffic. This traffic fueled the growth of the city, with an estimated 4,500 people in the city by the start of the Civil War.
The first Jews arrived in the years surrounding the Civil War. There is little documentation around these initial Jewish settlers, though an article from the American Israelite in 1873 suggested there were about 40 Jews living in the city at that point. The absence of information regarding this early community is itself an indication of the community's inability to maintain stable institutions. A plot of land was purchased for a cemetery in the 1870s, but it remained little used and the remnants of it have been lost to history.
Shops and Department Stores
The earliest Jewish arrivals were largely merchants and shop owners. By the turn of the 20th century, a handful of Jewish-owned stores had opened in Bowling Green. Hyman Pushin arrived from Lithuania in 1885 and had opened a general store in Bowling Green by 1900. However, the store proved short-lived as Hyman moved to Danville in 1906 to open a store with his brother. Another Pushin arrived into Bowling Green after the departure of Hyman. Sam Pushin moved in from Henderson in the early 1900s. He opened the Red Lion Store, a dry-goods shop that later became Pushin's Department Store. The store remained open and under Pushin ownership until 1978. Another prominent merchant family in Bowling Green was the Greenspans. Austrian brothers Adolph and Louis Greenspan opened the Bazaar Dry Goods Store which remained until it closed in 1937.
Communal Growth & Decline
The growth of Bowling Green's Jewish community was slow and slight. By 1937, only 37 jobs lived in Bowling Green, at a time when the overall population of the town was around 14,000. Bowling Green still lacked a formal congregation of any sort and most Jews in town traveled to Nashville for services.
The city's growth took off in the mid-20th century when the federal government built Interstate 65 through town. The city's population rose from 14,000 in 1940 to 40,000 by 1980. Despite the city's growth, growth in the Jewish community did not follow suit. Newcomers into the city were often temporary and the existing Jewish merchants apparently had little desire to establish communal institutions.
Finally, in 1999 a formal Jewish congregation developed in Bowling Green: Congregation Am Shalom. A key goal of the congregation was “to promote the fundamental and enduring principles of Judaism and to ensure the continuity of the Jewish people.” Starting with just six families, the congregation soon grew to include 18 local families. The congregation never established a formal building, instead opting to hold services in members homes and rent out space from the local Unitarian Church. For their early years, there was not a dedicated rabbi and most services were lay-led. From time to time, rabbis came up from Nashville or rabbinical students from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati came to Bowling Green to conduct services, but this was not regular.
At its height in the early-2000s, Am Shalom boasted a membership of 35 families. However, in the late-2000s and early-2010s the Jewish community of Bowling Green shrank and Am Shalom ceased having regular services and eventually shut down altogether. Today, Bowling Green serves as a satellite community to Nashville, with most families making the hour-long drive down for services and religious school.
Jewish Hilltoppers
The primary institution ensuring a constant presence for Jews in Bowling Green is Western Kentucky University. There has always been a strong contingent of Jewish faculty in the university, bringing young Jewish families to the city. Though this ensured a constant Jewish presence, the reality of early-career academics being fairly transient as they get established meant that there was always high turnover in the community. The same was true of Jewish students at WKU. The Jewish student population has had its ebbs and flows over the years, with most students arriving from either Nashville or Louisville, and leaving Bowling Green after graduation. Despite this fluctuating student population, there have been several attempts to jumpstart the Jewish Student Organization on campus. The most recent of these has seen the support of Louisville's charitable endowment the Jewish Heritage Fund and has ensured that there are regular shabbat dinners and holiday celebrations in Bowling Green.
As of 2024, there were about 50 Jewish students on campus and 10 Jewish faculty at WKU.