How the Chestertown Havurah came to be

It is quite possible that Jewish people—at least a few—have lived in and around Chestertown as far back as the Colonial period. After all, Chestertown was an important shipping port and was on the primary overland route between Alexandria, Virginia, and Philadelphia. Chestertown was a lively and prosperous port and college town; indeed, it’s documented that George Washington slept here. Around the start of the 20th century, according to Maryland Jewish Historical Society records, there were six Jewish families in Kent County. Since the mid-20thcentury, there have always been a handful of Jewish families living in the area.
The formation of the Chestertown Havurah was an evolutionary process. Like a river, it gathered energy from various sources as more and more Jews—mostly retirees—began moving to the area. We encourage new members to get to know our members, and to ask some of the earliest members to reminisce about how the Chestertown Havurah came to be.
One of the meandering streams that eventually helped produce the Havurah began as a trickle in the late 1990s, when five Jewish couples (the Brandeses, Cohens ,Elsbergs , Lavines and Rudnicks) began getting together for brisket dinners and lox and bagel brunches. Though the Rudnicks were the only true local long-time residents, the Lavines had spent weekends here for many years; the others had moved to Chestertown in recent years, after their children were grown. As time passed, the brisket and bagel bunch began to wonder if they were the only Jews on the Upper Eastern Shore, and they attempted to seek out others.
They were pleasantly surprised to find more Jews in the area than they had expected, including two long-time Washington College professors, restaurant and shop owners, retirees, a celebrated novelist, a shipwright (for the Sultana), the Chester River bridge tender, and a handful of weekenders from Philadelphia, New Jersey and the Baltimore-Washington corridor. By chance encounter, they discovered a well-known cantor, Gary Schiff, a former president of Gratz College in Philadelphia, who had recently become a full-time Kent County resident.
Cantor Schiff had been active in getting together with Jews in the area for social and religious functions when he was “discovered” by the brisket and bagels minyan. Another stream was already flowing. While the brisket and bagel contingent was reaching out, other Jews in the area were also active. The Rudnicks had hosted Hanukah parties (the latke connection?), and among the attendees was the very same Cantor Gary Schiff, who had recently become a full time resident in the area and was an adjunct professor of Jewish studies at Washington College in Chestertown.
As Gary met area Jews, he naturally gravitated to a leadership role at religious gatherings. He led services at the home of Bud and Bess Lavine, where a minyan was gathered so that Mickey Elsberg could say kaddish after his father’s death. This may have been the first formal religious gathering of the Chestertown-area Jews and was one more event that eventually led to the formation of the Havurah. Similarly, when Bud Lavine’s brother passed away, he requested a minyan for kaddish prayers, and Fran Cohen initiated the search for at least ten Jews so a service could be held at the Lavines’ home. At least one attendee that evening remembers that it was Fran who first voiced the idea of forming a havurah.
Cantor Gary Schiff has been, from the beginning, the spiritual leader of the group, though for the first three years of the Havurah’s existence, while Gary served as a High Holiday cantor in New Jersey, the Havurah’s High Holiday services were led by Rabbi Carol Rudnick Goldblatt, a daughter of Frank and Anita Rudnick who no longer lived in the area. Since 2004, Cantor Schiff has led all the religious gatherings of the Havurah, and has been involved in a wide range of interfaith community organizations and events. (For a great story about how a local non-Jewish farmer called Gary Schiff to ask him to “make his milk truck kosher,” ask Gary.)
There are some wonderful anecdotes about how the early Havurah members met each other and how the brisket-eaters, latke eaters, and others seeking fellow Jews became a group of more than forty-strong. It’s fun to hear about those first minyan phone calls, and about the family that was found when a toddler ran through the crowd at an outdoor concert crying “Zayde!” One story starts when two Havurah couples, out for a boat ride, spotted an Israeli flag flying on a Chester River pier.
Since there were no meetings or minutes before 2001, a list of “founders” is a bit of a memory challenge, but most agree that the earliest Havurah members included Joel and Fran Brandes, Steve and Linda Cades, Len and Fran Cohen, Bud and Bess Lavine, Mickey and Margie Elsberg, Judy Kneller, Frank and Anita Rudnick, Cantor Gary Schiff, and Bob and Marcia Yeager.
As important as those early gatherings were, and as amusing as the efforts to locate fellow Jews were, everyone agrees that one non-Jew played a significant role in the formalization of our Jewish community.
As early as the Tea Party weekend in 1999 (which corresponded to the celebration of Shavuot that year), Reverend Gregory S. Straub, rector of historic Emmanuel(Episcopal) Church in Chestertown, began reaching out to the local Jewish community. He had known Carol Rudnick Goldblatt for many years, and at a party at the Rudnicks’ home, Rev. Straub chatted with Carol about his plan to hold an interfaith service at Emmanuel. The following summer, Rabbi Goldblatt delivered a sermon at Emmanuel to an audience that included at least a dozen Jews.
A year later, Rev. Straub invited Rabbi Goldblatt to return to Emmanuel—not to deliver a sermon this time, but to lead a weekday Jewish service so his parishioners could become more familiar with Judaism and the roots of their own religion. Rev. Straub would deliver the sermon.
Hearing that Emmanuel Church was hosting a Jewish service, two or three dozen Jews, including Cantor Schiff, were in attendance when Rev. Straub said two surprising things: he chided his flock for poor treatment of the Jews in the area over many years, and he challenged area Jews to organize themselves into a formal community. Many Havurah members consider that service, on September 3, 2000,to be the event that led to the founding of the Chestertown Havurah—even though Rev. Straub’s challenge went unanswered at first.
When he realized that his sermon hadn’t prompted much action during the months after his sermon, Rev. Straub called Rabbi Goldblatt and offered a new challenge .If Carol would lead High Holiday services, he said, the Jewish community could transform Emmanuel from an Episcopal church into “Temple Emmanuel” so that Jews could gather for High Holiday services and meals, from Erev Rosh Hashanah to Break-the-Fast.
Carol accepted the offer and asked Margie Elsberg to spread the word and take charge of logistics. Enthusiastic members of the Jewish community stepped up to find solutions to a daunting array of challenges: Lou Fryman arranged for the loan of a Torah from Har Zion Temple in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia; Len Cohen bought the lumber and Joel Brandes constructed an Ark and reading table in his garage workshop; the Rudnicks’ neighbor, Meg Lynch, elegantly upholstered the Ark’s interior. The Elsbergs provided a shofar from Israel and Rabbi Goldblatt arranged for the permanent loan of 50 High Holiday prayer books from The Temple in Cleveland. Newsletters and notices went out, and in early September of 2002, the Chestertown-area Jewish community gathered at “Temple Emmanuel” for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur observances. The Chestertown Havurah was up and running.
As of 2011, the Chestertown Havurah has more than 120 members.