In 1925, members of Milwaukee’s Poale Zion organization wanted to hold a ball — and they decided to require that the participants all come dressed as Chasidim.
In 1949, celebrity actor and musician Eddie Cantor visited the Milwaukee Jewish Welfare Fund to help with its campaign.
And did you know that Milwaukee’s first Jewish police officer and first Jewish firefighter were brothers — Emil and Joseph Hansher, respectively?
All this and more can be seen in the photos and text of “Jewish Milwaukee,” a new book that Arcadia Publishing will officially release next week as a title in its “Images of America” series.
The book was researched, its photographs compiled and its text written by Martin Hintz, a freelance writer and publisher of the Irish American Post. In fact, it was this last connection that got him involved in the project, Hintz said in a telephone interview.
Arcadia specializes in publishing local and regional history books, including series of books on ethic or religious groups in different cities; and Hintz reviewed an earlier Arcadia book, “Irish Chicago,” for the Irish American Post.
Arcadia then asked Hintz to create a book in the series on “Irish Milwaukee.” Hintz followed up that one with “Italian Milwaukee.”
Hintz said he was the one who suggested to Arcadia officials that “Jewish Milwaukee” be the next project. “It’s almost going down the alphabet,” he joked.
But Hintz also said that he had friends and business acquaintances in the Jewish community that he knew had photographs. In fact, though he is not Jewish, he is a member of the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center and has traveled to Israel twice in the course of his work.
“I couldn’t have done this without the enthusiastic support of friends in the Jewish community,” Hintz said. He added that people passed his name on to others, creating a “great ripple effect.”
Hintz also made use of the resources of the Milwaukee Jewish Historical Society and the archives of the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle.
But some of his most interesting items came from individual families. “It’s almost like being a detective” in discovering “new and interesting twists” in family pictures, Hintz said.
Of the hundreds of photographs he examined between last spring and last autumn, Hintz chose some 300 for the book. He grouped them in ten chapters covering such topics as “The Early Years,” “Importance of Community,” “Celebrating the Homeland,” and others on business, the arts, sports, and military service.
Hintz said it was a challenge to obtain the stories of all the photos, and to keep his captions and text brief. “I guess a picture is worth a thousand words, but writers like to throw the thousand words in, too,” he said.
“Jewish Milwaukee” costs $19.99. Hintz said it is available at all the major area bookstores.
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