Highlights Harrisburg, PA Jewish History & Architecture

The new newest issue of Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies focuses on Harrisburg, Digital Public History, and the ‘City Beautiful,’ and contains three articles relevant to the study of Jewish space, architecture and architects.

Bruce S. Bazelon writes in “the Trek Uptown: The Migration of Harrisburg’s Jewish Community in the Early Twentieth Century,” (pp. 179-191) about demographic, geographic and architectural change in Harrisburg’s Jewish community. In “Faith in Beauty and Progress” (pp. 97-107) ISJM member Matthew Frederick Singer writes about the architecture of Harrisburg’s classically inspired Temple Ohev Sholom and Beth El Temple. In “The Brunner Plan for the Harrisburg Capitol Complex,” ISJM president Samuel D. Gruber writes about a lesser known aspect of the architecture and planning work of the American Jewish architect Arnold Brunner, today mostly remembered for his synagogue architecture, but who was in the early 20th century one of the founders of American city planning.

Many cities across America share similar stories. We challenge local historians to document and tell this history.

Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, Special Issue: Harrisburg, Digital Public History, and the ‘City Beautiful.’ Vol. 87:1 (winter 2020),

Access the entire journal and see the table of contents here.