In the early 1900s, more than 600 people lived in the 70 houses on just a single block of Lombard Street between Lloyd and Central Avenue. For example, two households lived in 1139 E. Lombard Street in 1910. The Bergers consisted of Morris, a 55-year-old pants presser; his 50-year-old wife Eva; their 18-year-old daughter Fannie, a coat operator; their newlywed son, 26-year-old Harris, a pants maker; and Harris’s wife Rebecca, age 20. The Sundicks included 36-year-old Max, a pants presser; his 35-year-old wife Sarah; and their four children ages 6 months to 10 years.

As they made the difficult economic and cultural adjustment to life in America, struggling Jewish immigrants like the Bergers and Sundicks often relied on the many charitable organizations run by uptown German Jews. One of the best known, the Hebrew Friendly Inn and Aged Home (which later became Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center and Hospital) began in 1890. In the early 1900s, it was located at 1153 E. Lombard Street, just east of Weiss Deli.

On the site of what is today Lenny’s Deli, Louis Herman operated a shvitz bad (Russian bath) in the early 1900s at 1116 E. Lombard. While very few homes featured hot water or indoor bathrooms, going to the Russian baths was generally an indulgence reserved for special occasions. For most residents, bathing meant a trip to the Walters Free Public Bath on High Street near Pratt (demolished 1953) where a nickel bought a shower, soap and a towel.

1153 E. Lombard Street, Baltimore, MD 21202

The Levy Building on East Baltimore Street

Of the many Jewish institutions in East Baltimore, the Jewish Educational Alliance at 1216 East Baltimore Street is one of the most fondly remembered. The organization formed in 1909 when the Daughters in Israel merged with the Macabbeans, a similar organization serving local boys.

The JEA building, donated by the Levy family, opened in 1913. It immediately became a refuge where local adults and children participated in activities that included English classes; art, dance, and music programs; citizenship, business, and job training; and athletic, literary, and social clubs. There was also a nursery, kindergarten, health clinic, and rooftop playground.

In 1951, with Jewish families gone from the neighborhood, the JEA merged with related organizations to form the Jewish Community Center (JCC), located in northwest Baltimore, and this building was sold to the maritime Seafarer’s Union. It later became an adult day care center. Through the years, the building was altered so that the original brick facade is no longer visible but it is still the same building that served thousands of Jewish residents in East Baltimore.

, December 21, 2016, Jewish Museum of Maryland.

1216 E. Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD 21202

An icon on Eutaw Place, the former Temple Oheb Shalom is a reminder of the vibrant Jewish community that thrived in the late nineteenth century in what were then Baltimore's expanding northwest suburbs. Built in 1892, architect Joseph Evans Sperry modeled the Eutaw Place Temple after the Great Synagogue of Florence, Italy. Since 1960, the building is home to the Prince Hall Grand Lodge that has boasted such notable members as Thurgood Marshall and Eubie Blake.

A small group of twenty-one young German Jews established the Oheb Shalom congregation in 1853 to provide an alternative to the Orthodox Baltimore Hebrew Congregation (1830) and the Reform Har Sinai (1846). The congregation moved to Eutaw Place in 1892 and remained through their 1960 when they moved into a midcentury modern synagogue on Park Heights Avenue in Pikesville and completed the move to in 1960. Temple Oheb Shalom has played a significant role in American Jewish life through the history of the rabbis and cantors who have led the congregation, most notably Rabbi Benjamin Szold who led Oheb Shalom through 1892 and whose daughter, Henrietta Szold, was the founder of Hadassah.

In 1960, Temple Oheb Shalom left Eutaw Place for Pikesville and the Prince Hall Grand Lodge, under the leadership of Samuel T. Daniels, purchased the building. Among the members of The Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Maryland are Baltimore-born Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and James Hubert "Eubie" Blake, one of the most significant figures in early-20th-century African American music. In 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. visited the lodge to campaign on behalf of President Lyndon B. Johnson.

1305 Eutaw Place, Baltimore, MD 21217