The Jews of Kentucky
Kentucky's history is filled with stories about Jewish life in the state. Some of the most prominent American Jews, from Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (pictured to left) to founder of the World Series, Barney Dreyfuss, have all called Kentucky home at one point in their lives. Though much of Kentucky's Jewish history centers on Louisville and Lexington, historically the state's two largest Jewish communities, the western half of the state boasts a vibrant Jewish history all its own.
The first Jewish connection to the commonwealth was through famed pioneer Daniel Boone. A receipt from 1781, which contains a Yiddish notation, shows that the Richmond firm of Cohen and Isaacs paid Boone to survey land in what was then western Virginia.
The earliest Jewish settlers began arriving at the turn of the 19th century. The earliest known Jewish settler in Louisville was John Jacob, who arrived from Baltimore in 1802; and the earliest known settler in Lexington was Benjamin Gratz, who migrated from Philadelphia in 1819.
Migrating Down the Rivers
Jews settled in the western portions of the state during the middle of 19th century. Two factors fueled Kentucky's westward growth: agriculture and trade. The earliest communities were established as merchant and trading posts for the regional agricultural settlements. These trading posts grew into towns and villages as merchants arrived to engage in trade and shipping between the frontier and the East Coast. The largest cities on the frontier sat along the Ohio River, with Owensboro and Henderson being settled by 1797 and Paducah in founding in 1821.
Jews played a crucial role in this early development in Kentucky's west. Martin Suntheimer became the first Jewish settler in Owensboro in the 1840s; and in the same decade Morris and Abraham Uri, D. Lowenstein, and Leopold Klaw arrived in Paducah. In Henderson, Herman Schlesinger had immigrated from Prussia and was operating a local store by the 1850s.. Before the Civil War, Jewish settlement into the region remained relatively sparse and tenuous.
Despite this, Jewish merchants arrived in the region in increasing numbers, with the largest population being in Paducah, which could boast 11 Jewish-owned stores in 1861. However, the Civil War strained Jewish life in western Kentucky. Because of a constantly fluctuating presence of Union and Confederate armies, Jewish-owned businesses were at constant threat of being pillaged by soldiers.
Perhaps the most infamous story from the Jewish history of western Kentucky occurred in the backdrop of the Civil War: Ulysses S. Grant's order of expulsion of the region's Jews. In 1862, General Grant issued Orders No. 11, which sought to expel all Jews from his military district, which included western Kentucky. and the small Jewish community in Paducah was forced to leave the area.
Jewish Life in Western Kentucky
Following the Civil War, western Kentucky witnessed the founding of its first organized Jewish communities. New congregations opened in Owensboro (1865), Paducah (1871), and Henderson (1887). Although there wasn't a formal congregation, Bowling Green also boasted a Jewish population of 40 in 1873.
Most Jews in the region engaged in retail, with an Owensboro newspaper claiming that “the city owes much of its commercial reputation to the vim and enterprise of this class of people." In Paducah, Henry Wallerstein opened a three-story department store that remained open for over a century and in Bowling Green, the Pushin brothers operated a department store from the turn of the century until 1978. (See advertisement to left).
Kentucky's Jews also flourished in the state's most famous industry: whiskey distilling. Of Paducah's six major liquor producers at the turn of the 20th century, five were owned by Jews. The distillery owned by Joseph Friedman and John Keiler quickly became one of the largest in the country, producing 20,000 barrels of whiskey each year.
Moving East
While Jewish communities in Kentucky's western half developed and flourished in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, by World War II, Kentucky's Jewish population increasingly consolidated. On the eve of the war, an estimated 80 percent of the state's Jewish community lived in between Louisville and Lexington. As these two Jewish communities continued to grow, Jews from western Kentucky increasingly migrated eastward in the state.
Communities in Henderson and Owensboro struggled with declining populations and felt increasing pressure to consolidate with other regional communities. Temple Adas Israel in Henderson eventually folded into the larger community across the river in Evansville. The community in Owensboro continued to shrink and age, with residents increasingly relying on neighboring Evansville for services as the 20th century progressed. By the turn of the 21st century, there were estimated to be less than 100 Jewish families in western Kentucky, with Bowling Green and Paducah having the most stable populations.
