Passaic-Clifton
PASSAIC-CLIFTON
PASSAIC-CLIFTON , twin cities 12 mi. E. of New York City in N.E. New Jersey; total population of Passaic, 67,500 (2000), total population of Clifton, 79,026 (2000), combined Jewish population estimated at 10,500 (2000). Passaic is bordered on three sides by Clifton and their Jewish population is normally considered as a single unit. No systematic demographic study has been taken of the area since 1949, but it seems apparent that in the period 1950–70 the Jewish population of Passaic decreased considerably, although Jewish businesses continued to be located there, and that Clifton's Jewish population has developed since 1945 at Passaic's expense.
Passaic was founded by Dutch settlers in the late 17th century, but until the 1860s was little more than a transportation hub. In 1859, however, the advent of waterpower there led to its transformation into an industrial city. Incorporated as a village in 1869, Passaic, three years later, achieved the status of city. Up until the 1860s, however, it had no Jewish residents. Significantly, the first sustained industrial enterprise at Passaic was a mill owned by a Jewish man. Jacob Basch & Co. opened in 1862, and eventually it was joined by additional woolen and worsted establishments; by 1910 Passaic's well-known worsted mills employed nearly 43% of all its industrial employees. Unfortunately, when the woolen industry abandoned the city after World War ii, its earlier prosperity was severely undermined. Inasmuch as the textile industry traditionally attracted cheap labor, Passaic became a haven for European immigrants. By 1910 just over half of the city's 54,773 people were foreign born; an estimated 3,500 were Jewish, although the great preponderance was Slavic. During the first decade of the 20th century, moreover, Passaic became overcrowded, leading newcomers to make their residences beyond its borders in Acquackanonk Township, which in 1917 was incorporated as Clifton, as well as in the towns of Garfield and Wallington, which are also adjacent to the city. As a result of the textile industry's demise, the offspring of Passaic's white population began to move away, their places being filled by nonwhite minorities.
While Jacob Basch, the mill owner, was the city's original Jewish settler, a onetime itinerant peddler named Moses Simon undertook to organize its Jewish community. Although the Simon family supposedly had settled near Passaic in 1870, communal activity did not begin until 1885, by which time the pattern of immigration had shifted. Passaic's Jewish population was originally largely occupied in small retail businesses that serviced the ethnic neighborhoods. By 1900, however, members of the community were also involved in legal and financial affairs as well. A sociological survey conducted in 1937 reported that 43% of the gainfully employed Jews in Passaic were engaged in commercial trade, 22% in manufacturing, and 12% in professional services; a more recent study, made in 1949, found 40% in trade, 30% in the professions, and only 12% in manufacturing.
Almost from its inception, members of the Jewish community also participated in civic life as well, a tradition that began with Jacob Basch's son Henry, who took an active interest in municipal affairs beginning in the 1880s. As early as 1892 Jews gained minor elective offices, such as election judge; in 1904 Joseph Spitz was elected as a council representative from his ward, and in 1919 Abram Preiskel, in being elected to the board of commissioners, became the first Jew to win a city-wide political contest. Passaic's first Jewish mayor, Morris Pashman, was elected in 1951; in 1967 Bernard D. Pinck was elected mayor, and he was succeeded by Gerald Goldman in 1971. Clifton's first Jewish councilman, Fred Friend, was elected in 1931, and in 1962 Ira Schoem was elected as that city's first Jewish mayor. In both cities members of the Jewish community have long been active in the deliberations of the respective boards of education.
[Michael H. Ebner]
Passaic's first Jewish congregation, B'nai Jacob (Orthodox), was founded in 1889; by 1911 it had been joined by six others, all Orthodox. More Orthodox congregations were established after World War i, and eventually some have been rebuilt in the newer sections of the city. Passaic's Conservative synagogue, Temple Emanuel (1923), quickly became the city's leading congregation. About 1938 the Ahavas Israel was founded and grew substantially to become the second largest Conservative congregation and Hebrew school. There were about 18 congregations at that time. The Clifton Jewish Center (1943, Conservative) and Beth Sholom Reform Temple (1959) were established to serve the population which had shifted to the suburbs of Passaic from the early 1940s. The Jewish Community Council of Passaic-Clifton (organized in 1933), now the Jewish Federation of Greater Clifton-Passaic, administers the United Jewish Appeal and coordinates all community bodies, which include the Passaic-Clifton ym-ywha, and The Daughters of Miriam, as well as a variety of other fraternal and service groups such as Jewish Family Service and Holocaust Resource Center. The Hillel Academy (1945), an Orthodox day school, offers intensive Jewish education. The Passaic-Clifton Board of Rabbis (founded in 1953) directs the Va'ad Ha-Kohol, which supervises kashrut in the community. A unique institution is the Passaic United Hebrew Burial Association (ḥevra kaddisha) which built the Jewish Memorial Chapel in 1949. It is one of two such nonprofit institutions in the United States and is owned and administered by the Jewish community.
[Edwin N. Soslow]
About 1960 the Jewish population was declining; the Orthodox were getting older and fewer and the Conservatives were moving to nearby more suburban locations. During the late 1970s a committee was formed to attract more Jews into the community (partially to "shore-up" real estate values). They put ads in the Jewish press which attracted Orthodox Jews from areas in New York City. In 1983, the construction of an eruv in Clifton-Passaic attracted many Orthodox Jews to the community. A significant resettlement of Russian Jews took place in the 1980s.
In the early 21st century the Conservative Jewish population was aging and diminishing and the Orthodox group was more vibrant, growing larger both from within and from outside. They were founding and building their own institutions. One ultra-Orthodox group has a school built for girls (in 1995, Yeshiva K'tana) and one for boys at a different location. The other Orthodox group erected a new Hillel school building to accommodate 800 boys and girls from preschool to the 8th grade. The mikveh was built in the middle 1980s. Thirteen major synagogues were operating in the early 21st century as well as many small congregations that meet in houses.
[Edward W. Schey,
Robert Moskowitz,
Jacqueline Klein, and
Jane Mandelbaum (2nd ed.)]
bibliography:
Jewish Roots: A History of the Jewish Community of Passaic and Environs (1959); S.M. Robinson, in: S.M. Robinson and J. Starr (eds.), Jewish Population Studies (1943), 22–36; B.B. Seligman, Jewish Population of Passaic, New Jersey, 1949: A Demographic Study (1951).