Butler library event features Jewish history in Butler County
“Butler Jews and their Neighbors,” presented Thursday night, March 26, was the first of three events in a program at the Butler Area Public Library aiming to highlight Jewish history in Western Pennsylvania.
The event, brought to Butler by the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh and the Yiddish Book Center’s Public Libraries Program, was led by Eric Lidji, director of the Rauh Jewish Program and Archives at the Heinz History Center.
Lidji spent the evening telling guests about the historical interactions and friendships between people of different faiths in Butler County. Accounts of these interactions came from archives displayed on the second floor of the library.
One of the people Lidji spoke about was Marie Robinson, who had written a letter to a fellow member of the Pennsylvania Federation of Women’s Clubs about a meeting being scheduled on a Jewish holiday. In the letter, written in September of 1954, Robinson apologizes to her peer for the oversight.
“To me, this letter is a textbook example of how you navigate through a tricky social situation.” Lidji said.
Two other people Lidji discussed were Bernard and Allen Zeman, who were a father and son who had lived in Evans City. Lidji told Allen Zeman’s story about what it was like growing up.
He recounted the purchase of Zeman’s first yarmulke and prayer book from Rosen’s bookstore. Despite Zeman’s excitement about it as the only Jewish child in town, he did not wear it to school because he wanted to avoid questions. Lidji highlighted the way families at the time were OK with being different in their own home, but not with displaying their differences to the public.
Finally, Lidji told the story of Rabbi Walter Boninger.
Boninger was raised in Germany in the 1930s and fled to Chile after Kristallnacht, a night of anti-Jewish rioting around Germany. On the voyage to South America, his boat was hit and his parents died, leaving him alone in the United States at just 12 years old.
Boninger went on to join the Butler Council of Churches and caused the organization to rename itself the Butler Interfaith Fellowship.
Boninger, Lidji said, took the idea of helping and supporting the Butler community seriously, regardless of faith.
“He brought a very different and new sensibility to the interfaith work. It was a sense of mutual responsibility. The sense that the Jewish community needed to take an active interest in the life of the entire Butler community.” Lidji said.
Lidji closed the event by telling attendees history can be difficult to listen to, but it’s important to hear the difficult parts along with the good ones.
“What if we start by coming to a place, getting to know people who are different from us, finding those points of connection and then from there, seeing what might come from it.” Lidji said.
