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.