Maine Memory Network

Maine Jewish Film Festival Poster, 2011

Contributed by: An individual through Colby College Special Collections Date: 2011 Location: South Portland; Portland Media: Ink on paper

Globe Yiddish Theater, Auburn, 1914

Contributed by: An individual through Colby College Special Collections Date: 1914 Location: Auburn Media: Photograph and ink

Portland Hebrew School seating arrangement plan, 1955

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1955–1958 Location: Portland Client: Portland Hebrew School Synagogue Association Architect: Abraham Siegal

Portland Orthodox synagogue sanctuary, ca. 1954

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: circa 1954 Location: Portland Client: Congregation Shaarey Tphiloh Architect: Perley F. Gilbert Associates

Fallen Heroes: Maine's Jewish Sailors and Soldiers

Thirty-four young Jewish men from Maine died in the service of their country in the two World Wars. This project, including a Maine Memory Network exhibit, is meant to say a little something about some of them. More than just names on a public memorial marker or grave stone, these men were getting started in adult life. They had newly acquired high school and college diplomas, they had friends, families and communities who loved and valued them, and felt the losses of their deaths.

Fallen Heroes: Jewish Soldiers and Sailors, The Great War

Thirty-four young Jewish men from Maine died in the service of their country in the two World Wars. This project, including a Maine Memory Network exhibit, is meant to say a little something about some of them. More than just names on a public memorial marker or grave stone, these men were getting started in adult life. They had newly acquired high school and college diplomas, they had friends, families and communities who loved and valued them, and felt the losses of their deaths.

Congregation Shaarey Tphiloh

View collections, facts, and contact information for this Contributing Partner.

The Cedars

View collections, facts, and contact information for this Contributing Partner.

Jennie Aranovitch - honoring family legacy and Jewish identity
by Biddeford Cultural & Heritage Center

Her great-grandparents journey from Belarus through current day Jewish experience in Biddeford.

Redlining and the Jewish Communities in Maine
by David Freidenreich

Federal and state policies created unfair housing practices against immigrants, like redlining.

Jews in Maine

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12, Postsecondary Content Area: Social Studies
This lesson presents an overview of the history of Jews in Maine and the U.S., including some of the factors that led to Jewish immigration to the U.S., examination of the prejudice, discrimination and anti-Semitism many Jews have experienced, and the contributions of Jews to community life and culture in Maine.

Longfellow Studies: "The Jewish Cemetery at Newport"

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12 Content Area: English Language Arts, Social Studies
Longfellow's poem "The Jewish Cemetery at Newport" opens up the issue of the earliest history of the Jews in America, and the significant roles they played as businessmen and later benefactors to the greater community. The history of the building itself is notable in terms of early American architecture, its having been designed, apparently gratis, by the most noted architect of the day. Furthermore, the poem traces the history of Newport as kind of a microcosm of New England commercial cities before the industrialization boom. For almost any age student the poem could be used to open up interest in local cemeteries, which are almost always a wealth of curiousities and history. Longfellow and his friends enjoyed exploring cemeteries, and today our little local cemeteries can be used to teach little local histories and parts of the big picture as well. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow visited the Jewish cemetery in Newport, RI on July 9, 1852. His popular poem about the site, published two years later, was certainly a sympathetic portrayal of the place and its people. In addition to Victorian romantic musings about the "Hebrews in their graves," Longfellow includes in this poem references to the historic persecution of the Jews, as well as very specific references to their religious practices. Since the cemetery and the nearby synagogue were restored and protected with an infusion of funding just a couple years after Longfellow's visit, and later a congregation again assembled, his gloomy predictions about the place proved false (never mind the conclusion of the poem, "And the dead nations never rise again!"). Nevertheless, it is a fascinating poem, and an interesting window into the history of the nation's oldest extant synagogue.