Jewish History of Pennsylvania

Welcome to the Museum of Pennsylvania Jewish History

The Museum of Pennsylvania Jewish History is a research forum curated by students at the Pennsylvania State University to share their research about Pennsylvania’s Jewish history.

The virtual museum includes research from Penn State students enrolled in JST/HIST115, The American Jewish Experience, who can participate in an additional one credit embedded course to visit historical sites, archives, and people around Pennsylvania to explore the state’s Jewish past, and students in Penn State’s Jewish Studies Department who conduct research in other courses or for their honor’s thesis about Pennsylvania’s Jewish history. Student researchers have the opportunity to take photographs, collect documents, conduct interviews, and write about their findings for the website.

 

Explore Pennsylvania’s Jewish History

The Museum of Pennsylvania Jewish History includes research about Jewish cemeteries, congregations, and communities throughout the state of Pennsylvania. Learn about some of the museum’s recent research projects.

Aaronsburg

Aaronsburg, located in eastern Centre County, has never supported a Jewish community. In 1786, however, Aaron Levy founded the town and it became the first town in the U.S. founded by a Jewish person. The town’s Jewish origins remained largely unknown outside of Aaronsburg until October 23, 1949, when more than 30,000 people came to Aaronsburg for the “Aaronsburg Story,” a celebration of Aaronsburg’s multi-faith history and Jewish founder.

Jewish Cemeteries of the Lehigh Valley

Discover Lehigh Valley’s rich Jewish history through an exploration of seven Jewish cemeteries in the Lehigh Valley, including the Cemetery of Congregation Keneseth Israel, Beth El Memorial Park, Sons of Israel Cemetery, Brith Sholom Cemetery, B’nai Abraham Cemetery 1 and 2, and the Temple Covenant of Peace Cemetery.

Jewish Cemeteries of Bellefonte

Discover Bellefonte’s rich Jewish history through the town’s two Jewish cemeteries, the East Logan Street Israelitish Cemetery and the Rodef Shalom Cemetery. Learn about the founding and development of both cemeteries as well as explore the diverse Jewish communities of Bellefonte and the Central Pennsylvania region with the biographies of all fifty individuals buried in the Rodef Shalom Cemetery.

Penn State Hillel on Locust Lane

In honor of Penn State Hillel’s return to downtown State College, explore the history of Penn State Hillel’s former location on Locust Lane in State College from 1952 to 1987.

Lock Haven

Lock Haven, located in Clinton County, had the first permanent Jewish settlement in both Centre and Clinton counties. One Lock Haven Jewish family, the Clasters, operated a dry goods business and helped more than one hundred Jewish family members and friends immigrate to the U.S in the early twentieth century. These new arrivals, who initially worked as peddlers and later established their own businesses, serviced the Central Pennsylvania region and helped form some of the other early Jewish communities in Central Pennsylvania.

Bellefonte and State College

Although a Jewish community existed in Bellefonte as early as the mid-nineteenth century, no formal Jewish religious institutions developed in central Centre County until State College, home of the Pennsylvania State University, began attracting a Jewish population in the early twentieth century. These Jewish institutions supported Jewish Penn State students as well as Bellefonte and State College Jewish community members.

Philipsburg

Philipsburg, located in western Centre County, had a Jewish population as early as the mid-nineteenth century, but its Jewish community increased rapidly with the arrival of Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the early twentieth century. Unlike the Jewish communities of Lock Haven, Bellefonte, and State College, whose histories are intertwined, the Jewish community of Philipsburg had little overlap with these other Central Pennsylvania Jewish communities.