Jewish Historical Society of Delaware
Collecting, preserving and telling the history and stories of Delaware's Jewish community since 1974.
Seventy-five years ago Lou Brown mailed this V-mail Passover Greetings message to “Dear Mollye” Sklut at the 515 French Street YMHA.
We are delighted to have oral history interviews with Lou and Faith Brown.
Learn about the JHSD Oral History program and all the other exciting news about our future plans.
We are excited about our annual meeting and eager to share our program, Telling Our Stories: Oral History in Delaware’s Jewish Community. But we know that rescheduling this event to a future date is best for our members and our community. Please check back. We’ll post a new date for our meeting soon.
The JHSD is still available to answer questions on-line and by telephone. If you are researching your family history, we would love to help. Send us a note.
By CELIA GANS
From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day we indulge. By January 2nd, we bulge. And join a health club. That’s right, statistics confirm that the highest number of health and fitness club memberships are bought in January. Not just bought, but used. According to A.J. Lipstein, JCC Fitness Center Coordinator, “In January, 1993 the Center averaged over 1,400 member- visits per month.”
1,400 member visits? Isn’t that almost triple the projected number of visits-per-month projected for the newly refurbished center opened in November, 1992? What’s going on here? In case you haven’t noticed, the Fitness Center is thriving.
Its cardio-vascular and Vigor Sport strength-training equipment (retrofitted, with 6 new machined added since the fall of 1992) is state-of-the-art. Its six staff trainers and 11 independent personal trainers are all certified athletic trainers (or must become certified within 6 months of joint the Center) or physical therapists. The independent trainers not only bring in their own clients, but work one five-hour shift per week at the Center with any Center member. The trainers also bring expertise: Ron Johnson, trainer of the Wilmington Blue Rocks, gives baseball clinics in addition to his hours of floor time.
Classes, including regular, step and low-impact aerobics, country line dancing, and its special classes (“Stretch & Flex” Co-Ed Conditioning or “Abs with A.J.,” for example), are open to members on a first-come- first-serve basis. “We recognize that fitness center members couldn’t always make one or two specific classes every week,” says Lipstein, “and we changed our class enrollment policy. Now, for an additional $135 per year, a member can attend an unlimited number of classes with no pre-class sign-up.”
The Fitness Center has also added special programs on health, which include lectures and health screenings. September was National Cholesterol Month, and the Center featured lectures on nutrition, with the measurement of cholesterol levels. October was National Spinal Health Month, with a chiropractor conducting a workshop and screening. January, 1994 will feature Dr. Alan Tocker lecturing an eye care and conducting eye checks, including a screening for glaucoma. In February, National Heart Month, cardiologist Edward M. Goldenberg, M.D., will conduct a workshop and perform blood pressure screenings. Again, any member can sign up for one or all of these special events.
By April, admits Lipstein, “people return to outdoor activities,” and Center visits taper to 950 to 1,000 per month. As for Lipstein himself, he’s always in training. In addition to his Fitness Center work, he’s captain of the Wilmington Rugby Club, whose record was 14-2 during the past season. “We lost to Washington, D.C. in the finals of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Tournament. That’s impressive for a city the size of Wilmington.” And, says A.J., if you’re interested in trying out for next season — it begins in February. Better check your fitness level first, however: remember that January sign-up statistic?
SPECIAL NEEDS POPULATION PROGRAMS
The Jewish Community Center does more than meet fitness and recreational needs of its members, according to Eileen Wallach, Program Director, it also reaches out to non-members with special needs. Five to 10 special needs youngsters 14 and over and adults use the Fitness Center; the JCC Summer Camp’s Tikun unit mainstream its special needs youngsters with other campers whenever possible. In cooperation with the Wheelchair Tennis Program of Delaware, 20 young people and adults from Delaware and Pennsylvania participate in spring-summer- fall tennis program, including instruction, drills and tournaments, on the JCC’s courts.
From March through June, 20-30 adults use the JCC’s pool for Special Olympics events and practice. The JCC provides Multiple Sclerosis Society adult members 50 to 90 hours per week of free pool time.
For the first time, the February 6, 1994 Snow Ball Run will be “open to athletes with disabilities in any division, including the wheelchair division,” says Wallach. This is sanctioned, she notes, and will meet all requirements for course layout, safety, and staffing. Run sponsors to date include MBNA, the Cactus Bar & Grill, Katler & Katler (Howard and Steven Katler, podiatrists, and Deane Katler are all JCC members), Rehabilitation Consultants, Double S Companies (construction), Patterson-Schwartz Realtors, Grotto Pizza, and Entenmanns’. The dollars raised by the event will be used to re-do special needs locker rooms at the JCC with a handicapped-accessible ramp, and install a wheelchair lift (or ramp) to the JCC’s lower level.
AQUATICS PROGRAM
In the fall of 1992, it was the JCC’s Fitness Center which benefit from new equipment, new staff, and a new outlook. Now, says JCC Program Director Eileen Wallach, it’s time to focus on the Aquatics Program. Under the direction of Melody Medley, a competitive swimmer, teacher and coach for almost 20 years, and head of the 1993 JCC Summer Camp’s Aquatics Program, the program is developing new ways to bring more people, more funds and innovative ideas into the JCC’s pool.
Medley has taught individual and group swimming lessons since 1974, and has served as an assistant coach for a national Junior Olympic swim team and four future Olympic swimmers. She is the inventor of the Swim Gem, a patented PVC (polyvinyl chloride) pipe “pool island,” which creates a safe, shallow, in-pool platform on which beginning swimmers can practice – or play.
In 1990, Medley conceived, wrote and produced two nationally distributed swim videos: “Swim, Play and Learn: A Parent’s Guide to Teaching Swimming Skills” and “Teach Yourself How to Swim: A step-by-step Video Guide for Adults.” In working with swimming instructors and coaches, Medley insists that “teaching swimming lessons should be as much fun for the teachers as it is for the students.”
“We’re looking ahead,” says Wallace, “with the American Red Cross phasing out its Water Safety and Lifesaving Programs, we want to be ready to fill the gap. We want to be leaders in developing successful aquatics programs for swimmers, for instructors, and for water safety and lifesaving certification programs.”
Twenty years ago, the Jewish Historical Society of Delaware celebrated the opening of “From Al’s to Zutz,” an exhibit at the Delaware History Museum recognizing the memorable role of Jewish merchants and businesses in Delaware. We will be recalling those memories with photographs and other memorabilia on our website and on our Facebook page, facebook.com/JHSDel.
Join in and share your memories and photos.
By LYNN EDELMAN
Editor
Take a stroll down memory lane to a time when Wilmingtonians schlepped their children to Wilmington Dry Goods for back to school supplies, haggled over the price of groceries at Sam’s Market and noshed with friends at Blatman’s Kosher Sanitary Bakery. Now through November 6th, you can celebrate Delaware’s rich Jewish business tradition through a unique exhibit at the Delaware History Museum in downtown Wilmington.
“From Al’s to Zutz” is a proud partnership of the Jewish Historical Society of Delaware and the Historical Society of Delaware. This treasure trove of photos, signs, newspaper advertisements, menus and other memorabilia took nearly five years to put together. Judging from the tremendous turnout at opening night festivities, it was well worth the wait.
“More than 400 people packed the gallery space so tightly that you could barely move,” said Marvin Balick, President of the Jewish Historical Society. Balick, a Brooklyn, New York native who was ‘raised here from the time I was a little boy,” said that the exhibit sparked fond memories of the time spent with his father and six brothers. “In preparation for the exhibit, we collected old Yellow Pages listings from the Wilmington telephone directory,” said Balick, who waxed nostalgic over an ad for Turkish and Steam baths operated by Leib Katz. “I can remember packing a lunch and spending the entire day at the schvitz,” he recalled.
Memories like these mark our very existence,” Dr. Barbara Benson, Director of the Historical Society of Delaware, who finds some parallels between the way that Jewish and Quaker settlers did business in Delaware. “Both peoples established small companies here rather than the large factories that were founded by other ethnic groups,” Benson explained. Many of these businesses began with merchandise peddled from carts directly to customers then eventually expanded to become storefronts.
Benson said that jobs at Wilmington institutions like “The Dry Goods” provided more than just an income to the emigres who served as employees. “For many, it was their first experience with the American culture,” she stated, adding that “a number of newcomers learned the English language while they assisted customers.”
Unlike larger East Coast cities Delaware Jewish merchants have always marketed their goods to the broader community. Also, because of its small size, Delaware’s Jewish community never established a “ghetto”, Benson maintained, explaining that “the addresses of these companies marked an economic entry point-many began in lower Wilmington and migrated to the suburban areas along with their customers.”
Although extensive, the exhibit “just scratches the surface of Jewish business in Delaware,” said Julian Preisler JHS Executive Director. Preisler emphasizes that the collection is not “a definitive history of Jewish business in Delaware but rather “a work in progress.” He plans to continue to expand the Jewish archives – which are housed rent-free in the basement of the Delaware Historical Society – and to develop a comprehensive data-base so that people who do not have physical remnants of their connections to Delaware’s Jewish business tradition can document their memories.”
Throughout the run of the exhibit, community members will have an opportunity to share their stories and compile an oral history of Jewish businesses in Wilmington, Newark, Dover and other communities throughout the State.
Why? “These stories are gone, and many of their former customers are gone as well,” said Benson, emphasizing that “We must preserve our past to pass on the future generations.”
“From Al’s to Zutz” is funded through grants from the Delaware Humanities Forum and the Jewish Fund for the Future, the endowment arm of the Jewish Federation of Delaware and through the generosity of numerous community businesses and individuals.
Admission is $4, but is free to members of the Jewish Historical Society. For additional information about the exhibit or to become a member, please call Julian Preisler at 655-6232.