From Historic Sheboygan County by Gustave
Buchen page 307-309, published in 1944, and updated and revised in 1975.
Aaron Zion, probably the first Jew to
settle in Sheboygan, opened a millinery shop on North 8th street.
Shortly afterward Sol Rosenbaum, a clothes peddler and Joseph Buntmann,
a fruit merchant were the next Jews to settle in the town. Nearly all
the Jewish immigrants to Sheboygan came from a region of Russia that is
today part of Belorus, where they lived in small towns and were
merchants, tailors, shoemakers, money lenders, and dealers in grain,
cattle , furs and hides. They came mainly to improve their
opportunities and economic conditions. Usually the man of the family
came first by himself, and then earned enough money to bring the rest
of his family. Many started their lives in Sheboygan as itinerant
peddlers with packs on their backs and ultimately opened small
businesses.
Herman J. Holman who came to Sheboygan
in 1890, together with his uncles Nachsun and Michael, who immigrated
in 1889, first worked as tailors. Herman opened his own shop for
tailoring, cleaning and pressing in a building on North 8th Street.
Several years later he opened a junk peddling business on the south
side. Ultimately he had a building erected at South 14th Street and
Broadway and started a dry goods business, with his wife operating the
store, and he continued with the junk business. In a small shed next to
the store he opened a small factory and installed a cutting table and a
number of sewing machines to make pants that he sold to local retail
stores. In 1902 he and his brothers Aaron and Harry started an overall
manufacturing factory on Michigan Avenue, however the venture was
closed after a year. In 1906 he opened a factory on Calumet Drive,
which he named H. J. Holman & Sons. In 1925 the business was moved
to a large factory at South 14th Street and Alabama Avenue and renamed
the Lakeland Manufacturing Company. Aaron Holman founded the Reliable
Shirt & Overall Company on North 15th Street and Harry Holman
started the Holman Manufacturing Company on N. 13th Street.
Sheboygan Jews remained strictly
orthodox in terms of their religious practice, in compliance with the
practices that they brought from Russia. This was in contrast to the
reform Judiasm practiced by some Jews of German descent in nearby
Milwaukee (50 miles south of Sheboygan). There were three synagoges,
Adas Israel, Ahavas Sholem and Ohel Moshe. Adas Israel, the oldest
congregation, which was started in the home of Nachsun Holman on North
8th street near Bluff Avenue in about 1890. The first synagogue
building was a small house, and then moved to a larger building both
located on North 8th street. The building was moved to North 13th
street and Carl Avenue in 1907 and was used by the congregation until
about 1975. Ahavas Sholem was first located in a wooden building on
Michigan Avenue just east of North 8th street and in 1903 was moved to
13th street and Geele Avenue, where it remained until 1975 (see photo
above). Ohel Moshe, founded in 1920 had its synagogue located at North
15th street and Marie Court.
The Jews of Sheboygan created an amazing
number of social and fraternal organizations. The oldest was a mutual
benefit society, called the Western Star. The Jewish Workman's Circle
(Arbeiter Ring) was founded in 1914(?) (30 years before this
publication) There also is a chapter of the B'nai B'rith, one of the
largest Jewish organizations in the US and the world. This chapter is
called the Davis Lodge, after Herman Davis, one of it founding fathers,
and was created in 1919. In 1925 a junior Jewish organization for young
men, called A.Z.A., was formed.
From the founding of the Jewish
community until the 1960s most of the Jews lived in a neighborhood ion
the north-west side of Sheboygan in the vicinity of Geele Avenue (see
map above). This was because William Schaetzer, the original owner of
the subdivision, who encouraged them to settle there and offered them
favorable terms of purchase. There were about 175 Jewish families in
Sheboygan at the peak there were about 150 familes. Within the decade
before this publication, many have started to move to Milwauk ee and
some to northern Wisconsin.
Information provided mainly by George
Paykel, George Holman and David Rabinovitz.