The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 107, July 2003 - April, 2004 Page: 391
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Tied and Tethered:Jews in Early Fort Worth
one for the "Israelites" of the city.7 The Hebrew cemetery's origins
demonstrate that Fort Worth's Jews, while an integral part of the land-
scape, were passive about creating their own religious institutions. In
1888 a local Jewish resident wrote a letter to the editor of Cincinnati's
American Israelite lamenting: "We have no congregation, no B'nai B'rith,
and the only society we have is the cemetery association [begun in 1881]
... and now interest in that most laudable enterprise is flagging."s
Meanwhile, Jewish settlers in other Texas cities had consecrated ceme-
teries and were coalescing into congregations: Houston's Jews founded
Congregation Beth Israel in 1856; in Victoria, six Jewish families orga-
nized B'nai Israel in 1858. Galveston followed in 1868 with
Congregation B'nai Israel, and San Antonio in 1872 with Temple Beth
El. Also in 1872, the year the railroad reached Dallas, that city's Jews
started organizing a congregation and within two years had a full-time
rabbi and an elegant edifice, Temple Emanu-El. Austin Jews launched
Beth Israel in 1876. By 1880, Hempstead, a railroad stop fifty miles
northwest of Houston, had established the Hempstead Hebrew
Congregation with an ordained rabbi and a clapboard synagogue con-
structed in the backyard of a leading merchant's home. Waco's
Congregation Rodef Shalom was chartered in 1881. The United Hebrew
Congregation of Gainesville, sixty miles north of Fort Worth on the bor-
der with Indian Territory, was also begun in 1881 and counted among
its members many kinfolk of Fort Worth's Jews.9
Each of these pioneer congregations gravitated toward American
Reform Judaism, a budding movement centered in Cincinnati and pro-
mulgated by the charismatic rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise.1 The Reform
7 Fort Worth Daily Democrat, Feb. 19, 1879; John Peter Smith donated an acre of land on South
Main Street to the "Israelites." Apphcation, Texas Historical Marker, cemetery box, Emanuel
Hebrew Rest Historic Marker folder (Beth-El Congregation Archives, Fort Worth) Also in 1879,
Smith set aside land for Oakwood Cemetery on the city's North Side, with sections designated
for Protestant, African American, and later Catholic burials. See Margaret W Harrison, "The
'Westminster Abbey' of Fort Worth: The Story of Oakwood Cemetery," Oct. 1, 1970, local history
pamphlets, Genealogy/Local History and Archives unit (Fort Worth Pubhc Library, Fort Worth).
" Letter to editor, American Israelite, July 13, 1888; cemetery box, Hebrew Rest deed folder
(Beth-El Congregation Archives, Fort Worth). The dormant cemetery association was revived in
1896.
'Henry Cohen, "Texas," Jewish Encyclopedia (12 vols.; New York and London- Funk & Wagnalls,
1901-1906), XII, 121-122; Henry Cohen, "Settlement of the Jews in Texas," Publications of the
American Jewish Historical Society, 2 (1894), 139-156; Gerry Cristol, A Light in the Prairne: Temple
Emanu-El of Dallas, 1872-1997 (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1998), 1-33;
Hollace Ava Wemer, Jewish Stars in Texas: Rabbis and Their Work (College Station: Texas A&M
University Press, 1998), 3-20o. The Victona congregation fell apart during the Civil War and was
reconstituted m 1894. "Jewish History of Victoria," typescript distributed during Texas Jewish
Historical Society quarterly board meeting, Jan. 15, 2000, Victoria, Texas.
10 Jonathan D. Sarna and Nancy H. Klein, The Jews of Cincinnatz (Cincinnati: Center for the
Study of the Amencan Jewish Experence, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion,
1989), 12-15.391
2004
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 107, July 2003 - April, 2004, periodical, 2004; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101224/m1/449/: accessed May 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.