First Horodenker
Sick and Benevolent Society
by Mark Heckman (1998)
History and Current Status
According to The Jewish Communal Register of New York City, 1917-1918, the "Erste Horodenker K. U. V. (F. G. B. J. A)" was founded in 1895 and offered sick, insurance, and cemetery benefits, and a place of worship. Membership was 150. Meetings were held the 2nd and 4th Sundays of each month at 214 E. 2nd St. The president in 1918 was Berl Weiss, 1446 2nd Ave. The secretary was Charles Lehrer, 40 E. 7th St.
According to Adele Sussman, current President, the group is essentially defunct. There is no activity or funds with the exception of some maintenance of cemetery plots and providing for the future burial of members who earlier paid for the plots. Any records, she says, are probably with YIVO.
Pictures
Cemetery Plots
The First Horodenker Society had a number of burial plots at different cemeteries. The cemeteries are listed here, along with the location of the plot in each cemetery and a map if available. See the Jewish Genealogical Society of New York web page on "New York Area Jewish Cemeteries" for the location of these cemeteries.
I have been researching the history of the BERMAN Family who came to America around 1895.
There were four siblings who arrived here around that time: Malke BERMAN ZAHLER, Noah and Feige BERMAN, Rose BERMAN GOLDHABER and David and Rose BERMAN. They came from the town of Horodenker which at the time was in Galicia/Austria-Hungary and is now in the Ukraine.
My grandfather was Noah BERMAN. According to information that I was able to research, my grandfather was one of the founders of "The Ershter (First in Yiddish) Horodenker Sick and Benevolent Society". Other names of founders were Joseph REIFF and Meshulum WEITZMAN.
This Society like all of the other Landsmanschaften were created to assist the newly arrived immigrant with some basic social services, a place to stay, some job opportunity, a place to pray, (the society had a shul, as I recall in a tenement ), health and welfare benefits and ultimately a burial site. The Ershter Horodenker Society purchased burial sites on Mount Zion Cemetery in Maspeth, Queens, Mount Hebron Cemetery in Flushing (one set of plots was purchased in 1912 and a second site in 1914) and in King Solomon Cemetery in Clifton, New Jersey.
As a kid, I knew of the Society because my father, Solomon BERMAN (Noah's son) was always an active member. In fact in 1950, my father was the President of the Society. (There is a formal group portrait of the 1950 Banquet Committee ).
The Society met on the Lower East Side, at the Broadway Central Hotel. The Banquets were generally held in a catering establishment called "Webster Hall" also located in the Union Square area of Manhattan.
These Banquets were very formal occasions and drew a substantial number of guests. Two names that stand out in my memory were Rabbi SCHORR who was the Rabbi of a large congregation in Borough Park, Brooklyn and Isadore DOLLINGER who was the District Attorney in the Bronx.
At the time of my father's presidency, my brother and I would act as the "color guard" and parade in with the flags of the United States and Israel.
The Banquet produced a large "journal". A soft-covered book printed on glossy paper that generated a good deal of income for the society. There were gold and silver pages for the "big-time" patrons as well as pages of ads that ran from a full page down to the size of a business card. Some of the contributors included photos. Many of the officers and members of the Society solicited ads from a variety of business contacts. These journals were quite extensive.
In addition to the Society as a social fraternal organization, there was also a religious congregation. "The Horaedenker Erste [sic] Congregation" was a shul that was located at 96 Clinton Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I recall my father taking me there a few times at Simchath Torah. This congregation had 5 Sefer Torahs. In the 1960s, when it appears that the shul disbanded, the Torahs were sent to Israel for distribution. In the pictures section, above. there are reproductions of pages that appeared in the 50th Anniversary Journal of the Progressive Horodenker Society that commemorate this event.
One of the more well-known members of the First Horodenker Society (possibly also the Progressive Society) was Isadore Dollinger. He was at one time the Bronx District Attorney and then a Congressman. He died January 31, 2000, at the age of 96.
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