Chicago’s Shifting Synagogue Landscape

Summary:

This website traces the creation, movement, and merger of Chicago's earliest synagogues through an interactive map.  The map includes each of the synagogues present at the moment of Chicago's Great Fire of 1871, and continues their stories until 1920.

The main primary sources utilized were historical directories and histories of the synagogues. The three main sources were Herman Eliassof's The Jews of Illinois (1901), Hyman L. Meites's History Of The Jews Of Chicago (1924), and The Sentinel Presents 100 Years of Chicago Jewry (1948). Historian Irving Cutler's material served as valuable secondary sources. All materials are cited in the Bibliography section of this website.

Scanned archival photographs and drawings were uploaded to Omeka. The timeline was created using Neatline.

Faculty Chicago Fellow:

Ben Zeller, Associate Professor of Religion, Lake Forest College

Chicago Fellows Year:

2017

Chicago Fellows Research Assistants:

Julianna Mauriello, '19 (Lake Forest College), and Kristin Rawlings, '19 (Lake Forest College).