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ROOTS
Most Jews in mid-19th century southern Pennsylvania and northern
Maryland were recent immigrants from small towns and villages in
southern Germany. They shared values and orientations that were rooted
in the experience of traditional Jewish life in a rural setting.
Such bonds may have been stronger among Jews in this area than
elsewhere in small-town America, as they were a relatively homogeneous
and closely-knit group with an exceptionally firm foundation in Jewish
tradition.
Of the Jewish families that had established themselves in Chambersburg,
Carlisle, Mechanicsburg, York or Hagerstown in the 1840's, many were
originally from Jebenhausen, a village in the Kingdom of
Württemberg in Germany. For decades this family
network was the backbone of Jewish life in the area. The Benevolent
Society which administered the Jewish cemetery of Chambersburg is a
case in point: More than half of its members, and almost all who in the
course of time served as its secretaries or board members, had roots in
Jebenhausen.
In their home village in Württemberg they had known a Jewish life
that could hardly be called diasporic: In the mid-19th century the
Jewish community of Jebenhausen numbered 500 people, accounting for
roughly half of the village population. The Jewish quarter had a
synagogue, a ritual bath, a cemetery, a rabbinate, an alms house, an
elementary school. No less than four inns catered to travelers
according to Jewish dietary laws. A Burial Society cared for the sick
and provided proper burial rites. Other pillars of Jewish religious and
social life in the village were several learning societies, which held
daily meetings for the study of the sacred scriptures, and a number of
charitable organizations.
In Jebenhausen there was little if any antisemitism, but legal
discrimination weighed heavily on the Jewish minority. Jews were not
allowed to move and settle freely in the Kingdom of Württemberg
until 1849. There were few ways to earn a livelihood in the village,
and the natural response to this dilemma, peddling wares in the wider
area, was frowned upon by the authorities. Poverty had led young Jews
from Jebenhausen to emigrate to America as early as 1798. In later
years, when poverty was less severe, lack of equal rights and of
economic prospects led entire families to leave for America. The Israelitische Annalen, a German
Jewish journal, wrote about a group of Jewish families that left
Jebenhausen on June 16, 1839:
"A large crowd
of spectators had gathered from far and near for the farewell. Not an
eye remained without tears, a deep wistfulness seized all hearts, as
this time it was not only young people, but six fathers of families
with women and children. It was truly moving and heart-rending when an
old man of 80 years, 11 of whose 12 children have emigrated now, took
farewell of 3 children and 14 grandchildren, of whom the youngest is
hardly two months old."
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The old man was Aron Arnold, and his three children who left on
that day were his son Marks Arnold and his daughters Ella Einstein and
Jeanette Arnold. They settled in Chambersburg, York and Mechanicsburg
and, like almost all of their relatives who had established themselves
in the area, joined the Benevolent Society when it was founded in 1840.
Two of Aron Arnold's sons, a daughter, eleven grandchildren, four
great-grandchildren, three sons-in-law, a nephew and several more
distant relatives are buried in the Old
Jewish Cemetery of Chambersburg.
When they convened in Chambersburg in September 1840, the founders of
the Benevolent Society saw themselves as continuing the traditions of
their home village. Significantly, the Hebrew name they chose for the
Society was "Hevrah Davar Tov" - the name of a charitable society that
had ceased to function in Jebenhausen a short time before.
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Jebenhausen:
Synagogue and Jewish quarter
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