It's a little piece of Jay County history (12/06/06)

Don't look for it on any best-seller lists, but there's a new book out about Jay County.

It's entitled "Jewish Families in Jay County," and Leo Glogas, one of the co-authors and the county's Jewish patriarch at the moment, would be the first to agree that it's not a huge volume.

That's because the Jewish population in this little chunk of rural Indiana has never been particularly sizable.

But what it lacked it size, it more than made up for in terms of impact and leadership in the county's history.

Glogas produced the book with retired teacher and energetic local historian Janice Stucky. It was published by the Jay County Historical Society, an organization that's seen a rise in membership and enthusiasm in the past three to five years.

Leo and Janice contacted sources all over the country to make sure the story of each of the families was told.

Some of the names are familiar to those of us who have lived here most of our lives: Weiler, Goodman, Abromson, Goldman, and Smilack for example.

Others are less so, reaching further back into the county's past: Kirschbaum, Silvernale, and Appenzeler, for instance.

Rapahel "Ralph" Kirschbaum was the first documented Jewish settler in the county, coming here in 1857 and opening a department store. That store later became Kirschbaum and Silvernale when Kirschbaum teamed up with Isaac Silvernale, a native of Bavaria who had come to the U.S. at the age of three.

Silvernale arrived in the county in 1862 at the age of 17, and by 1870 had established himself as a dry goods merchant.

Many of the Jewish families represented in the book were merchants, but three of them were journalists.

And that's where my small contribution to the book comes in.

When Leo was researching the project, he was looking for information on Dan Rottenberg, one of the best-liked editors in the history of The Commercial Review. Dan worked in Jay County journalism in the 1960s, right after his graduation from the University of Pennsylvania, and had gotten to know the Glogas family at that time.

While putting Leo in contact with Dan, I mentioned two others who worked in the same newsroom after Dan's departure. Both - Alan Richman and Martin Gottlieb - have gone on to bigger and better things.

Al is a columnist and food critic for GQ, also known as Gentleman's Quarterly. Marty is an editor and columnist at the Dayton Daily News. There's a letter to the editor from him in the latest issue of Columbia Journalism Review, taking aim at media failures when reporting on western Ohio voting patterns.

Many of the families represented came to this country while fleeing from conscription in the czar's army in imperial Russia. That's true for the Abromsons, the Smilacks, and some of Leo's ancestors.

Here they found a new future, new friends, and a sense of community.

"Life in the small communities provided a good living and a better understanding and close relationship with people of different faiths," write Stucky and Glogas. "Very few prejudices were ever witnessed. Jews active in their community affairs were well respected."

And that's a bit of local history to be proud of.[[In-content Ad]]