Jewish Routes // Greater Hartford
Just outside of Hartford proper, Jewish families have intermingled with new immigrants over the years to form an unusually cohesive community in the suburbs of Greater Hartford.
Jewish Routes // Vermont
The Jewish presence in Vermont can be traced back to land speculators in the 1760s, but a more substantial group, primarily German-speaking, started settling in the state in the 1840s
Jewish Routes // Chicago
Today, with nearly 300,000 Jews, the Chicago metropolitan area is home to the third-largest Jewish population in the United States. But to many Chicagoan Jews, it has the feel of a small town.
Jewish Routes // Arizona
Defying stereotypes, early Jewish pioneers in Arizona were not just storeowners and bankers, but cowboys, lawmen, ranchers and entertainers. The first known Jewish settler was the German-born Nathan Benjamin Appel, who headed west in 1856 from New York to St. Louis, then followed the Santa Fe Trail to the territory’s new capital, Tucson. Appel went on to lead a colorful life in the Wild West: He married a Catholic woman (there were no Jewish women in the territory), had ten children, and was a sheriff, saloon owner, wagon train leader and merchant. Loyal to his heritage, upon his death in 1901, Appel had a Jewish funeral led by a rabbi.