History of the Jews in San Francisco

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The history of the Jews in San Francisco began with the California Gold Rush in the second half of the 19th century. The San Francisco Bay Area has the fourth largest Jewish population in the U.S.^[1] behind the New York area, southeast Florida and metropolitan Los Angeles. Jewish San Franciscans played a significant role in the economic and cultural development of San Francisco and California.

History[]

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19th century[]

Temple Sherith Israel

The small Mexican settlement of Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco in 1847 and quickly became the most important city in the American West. The discovery of gold in California in 1848 brought many German-speaking Jews from Bavaria and the Province of Posen to San Francisco. San Francisco's Jewish population was the second largest Jewish community in the country by 1880. Congregation Sherith Israel was established during the Gold Rush and is one of the oldest synagogues in the United States. The synagogue was the temple of the more old-fashioned Poseners which were less financially successful than the Bavarians.

Levi Strauss left New York for San Francisco and supplied miners with sturdy denim pants. In 1853, Levi Strauss & Co. was founded as David Stern & Levi Strauss and located at 90 Sacramento Street close to the docks of San Francisco. The world-renowned blue jeans were invented by Jacob W. Davis and Levi Strauss, who patented their design in 1873.

Adolph Sutro was the first Jewish mayor of San Francisco from 1895 until 1897. At one time Sutro owned one-twelfth of the acreage of San Francisco. He purchased the Cliff House in the early 1880s, and one thousand acres of land facing the ocean, now called Sutro heights.^[2] The Sutro Baths, located on the north side of Ocean Beach, south of the Golden Gate Bridge, opened as the world's largest indoor swimming complex in 1896.

20th century[]

On April 18, 1906, an earthquake and subsequent fires devastated over 80% of San Francisco. The destruction affected all its citizens, including the nearly 30,000 Jews who lived in the city.^[3]

See also[]

• History of the Jews in the United States

References[]

Further reading[]

• Rosenbaum, Fred (2009). Cosmopolitans: A Social and Cultural History of the Jews of the San Francisco Bay Area. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-27130-2.

External links[]

• San Francisco Bay Area Site of the Jewish Virtual Library