Maine Memory Network

Mishna record book, Portland, 1901

Contributed by: Congregation Shaarey Tphiloh Date: 1901 Location: Portland Media: Ink on paper

Shaarey Tphiloh Sisterhood tea invitation, Portland, 1947

Contributed by: Congregation Shaarey Tphiloh Date: 1947-11-18 Location: Portland Media: Ink on paper

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Assessor's Record, 216-218 Cumberland Avenue, Portland, 1924

Owner in 1924: Hebrew Synagogue Society Use: Synagogue

Assessor's Record, 145-151 Newbury Street, Portland, 1924

Owner in 1924: Hewbrew Synagogue Society Use: Synagogue

Portland Orthodox Synagogue, ca. 1954

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

Portland Hebrew School, 1955

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

Shaarey Tphiloh, Portland's Orthodox Synagogue

Shaarey Tphiloh was founded in 1904 by immigrants from Eastern Europe. While accommodating to American society, the Orthodox synagogue also has retained many of its traditions.

Anshe Sfard, Portland's Early Chassidic Congregation

Chassidic Jews who came to Portland from Eastern Europe formed a congregation in the late 19th century and, in 1917, built a synagogue -- Anshe Sfard -- on Cumberland Avenue in Portland. By the early 1960s, the congregation was largely gone. The building was demolished in 1983.

Congregation Shaarey Tphiloh

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

Life on a Tidal River - The Flying Torah

"… times with the Torah given to him by Beth Israel Synagogue. Bangor Public Library Captain Gordon poses with the 'Flying Torah,' Bangor, 1945…"

Cantor Beth & Dr David Strassler: personal insights on life
by Biddeford Cultural & Heritage Center

The journey of a couple devoted to each other, their family, their community and their religion

Redlining and the Jewish Communities in Maine
by David Freidenreich

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

Building Community/Community Buildings

Grade Level: 6-8 Content Area: Social Studies
Where do people gather? What defines a community? What buildings allow people to congregate to celebrate, learn, debate, vote, and take part in all manner of community activities? Students will evaluate images and primary documents from throughout Maine’s history, and look at some of Maine’s earliest gathering spaces and organizations, and how many communities established themselves around certain types of buildings. Students will make connections between the community buildings of the past and the ways we express identity and create communities today.

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.