Weequahic — a moment in time
Opinion

Weequahic — a moment in time

I was born at the Beth, Newark’s Beth Israel Hospital as it was known in 1939.

It was our neighborhood hospital, perched high on Lyons Avenue, and when our crowd spoke of someone in the hospital, for whatever reason, it was always the Beth. We could call it an anchor or a linchpin, but all of us were born there, identifiable as Weequahicites from birth on. And while things were beyond horrifying in Europe, we innocents, kids, knew nothing of Hitler or war. We knew life was generally good and we lived in a good place.

Often, as my own children were growing up, I would tell them how much better my childhood was than theirs. It was! My mother never drove, which was pretty common then, and this forced my friends and me to develop navigational skills early in life. Dad was never available to take me anywhere, so I had to do it myself, at least from about age 5 on. We little kids learned independence, and its counterpart, freedom. This was good!

Mom never arranged a playdate for me. What in the world was a playdate anyway? All I had to do was walk outside, and there were playdates galore. Mom never knew exactly where I was, but I always arrived home in time for meals, safe, happy and hungry!

Come to think of it, it was pretty much easier to be a mother in those days.

Our neighborhood, in Newark’s South Ward, was almost totally Jewish in the 1940s, home to more than 60,000 Jewish souls, almost 25% of the city’s population. The community was home to about 50 Orthodox synagogues, and three temples. Our shuls were always named, but usually referred to by their street addresses. Thus, my family’s synagogue was Rodfei Shalom, known to the community at large as the Clinton Place shul. Caveat: while the shuls were mainly Orthodox, the members were not. Maintaining the minyanim was a responsibility of retired men. Working men continued to work on Shabbatot, often taking off on major holidays only.

The three temples were all beautiful edifices and much fancier places than our little shtiebels. They continue to thrive today in suburban locations.

We kids were rarely expected to show up in shul. Hanging out outside was what we usually did, and only on holidays. We never went to school on those days. It was common that we would stay home from school, en masse, without even knowing which holiday was being celebrated.

We also had a day school on the corner of Clinton Avenue and South 13th Street. It was called the Hebrew Academy of Essex County, precursor to the Kushner School in Livingston. I attended that school for quite a few years and my picture can be found hanging in the lobby of Kushner, the new iteration. I am the skinny little girl wearing a big frown! I was never happy that the school, too far from our Aldine Street home for me to walk, provided a bus that got me home too late to play with the neighborhood kids. Finally my parents relented and sent me to the local school on Chancellor Avenue.

The Weequahic neighborhood schools were uniformly excellent, both elementary schools and the world-renowned high school. Modern educational theory holds that classrooms should accommodate about 20 pupils, but our classrooms typically housed twice that many and produced supremely well-educated graduates. Our generation was almost entirely college prep. Our parents had aspirations for us, and we mostly fulfilled them, even though the classrooms today would be considered substantially overcrowded. There were some students who were unable to attend college, mainly due to financial reasons, but they were not the norm.

The neighborhood itself was packed with stores suited to Jewish consumers. The little candy stores sold Yiddish newspapers. My two grandfathers both read the Forward, Forverts, and it was my daily responsibility to deliver the papers to them. Pop, my mother’s father, who lived with us, would sit for hours scouring the paper and sharing stories with us, especially from the advice column, the Bintel Brief. As a kid, I suspected it was fiction rather than fact. I shall never know! Suffice it to say some of the queries and situations were hard to believe.

There were also a multitude of kosher butchers. Mom went to Joe’s, across from our shul, at least four times weekly. Often I accompanied her. It was always a long negotiation before she ultimately selected the day’s dinner. Unlike today, when we go into the butcher’s shop, which remarkably has no signs of sawdust on the floor, and also remarkably has no butcher waiting on you. Today everything is pre-packaged, often prepared for sous vide or barbecue. And it’s already kashered! How’s that for a modernization? Mom’s slanted board, on which she soaked and salted, is gone. Forever! I suppose that’s an improvement, although nostalgia favors the store experience as it was. So human! Today I don’t even know the butcher’s name but I suspect it is more likely to be Jose than Joe.

Naturally, we had grocery stores. They were often small shops. The grocer would use a grabber device to retrieve items, especially the ones that were stacked high up. Mom would call Jerry the grocer, and just like today, minus the computers, he would have her order delivered, albeit by a boy on a bicycle instead of a truck. His calculations were naturally written on a brown paper bag. There was no charge for the bag!

And I know I can be boring, but yet again I am compelled to call out Watson’s Bagels, a neighborhood institution and maker of the world’s best bagels. No New York or Montreal bagel shop is even near the same league.

So, our neighborhoods were busy and safe, and we knew our neighbors, who were almost entirely Jewish. What happened? Where did that way of life disappear to, and why?

It’s complicated!

Even in the ’40s the wealthier families of Weequahic began to move to places like South Orange and Hillside, where they could live in beautiful single-family homes, more beautiful than Weequahic’s finest streets, like Keer Avenue and Hansbury Avenue. They normally sold their homes to other Jews, but not always. Strike one!

Then there were the highways.

Route 78 was very destructive to the Weequahic neighborhood. It literally chewed it up into parcels, tearing down houses in its path, making many areas unrecognizable. While common thinking is that the end of Weequahic was due to the riots in 1967, that is only part of the story. The highway was undoubtedly more destructive, paving the way for the loss of community.

The riots took place in July 1967, and they were the final death knell to our Newark 8th district. Death and destruction were in its path, and flight ensued. Many Jews valiantly tried to save their Weequahic way of life, but they did not succeed in Newark anymore. By the 1970s there were perhaps 500 Jews left in the city. Today there are undoubtedly far fewer. My Newark is gone, and I miss it still.

Today, a ride through our Newark is unrecognizable. Many of our streets have been claimed by a highway. It is very difficult to navigate. Yet we who lived at 83 Aldine Street can find comfort that the house that Zayda built in 1929 still stands tall and proud. Each time we visit, as we do every few years or so, I long to ring the doorbell and ask to see our family’s apartment. I yearn to see the sink with the kashering board, and the flanken being made kosher. I yearn to see my father’s secretary desk, where he worked hours every day at the conclusion of his official workday. I yearn to see Pop reading the Forward, perched on the green and white floral print chair in the living room, and I long to see the cat Lena, owned by no one but fed and tended to by all.

I suppose, to be honest, I yearn to be young again, living in a beautiful, secure Jewish place known as Weequahic.

Rosanne Skopp of West Orange is a wife, mother of four, grandmother of 14, and great-grandmother of eight. She is a graduate of Rutgers University and a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. She is a lifelong blogger, writing blogs before anyone knew what a blog was! She welcomes email at rosanne.skopp@gmail.com

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