There was a lot of life… There were people outside, in the parks, playing music.” Despite the neighborhood's busy character – and the high crime rates that plagued Washington Heights in the 1990s – Piltz recalls the many small mom and pop stores that dotted “the Heights”. “I remember walking through the neighborhood and how vibrant it was. The institution exemplifies the ideal of Torah Umadda, the study of sacred Jewish texts along with the secular wisdom of the world at large.Ĭhicago lawyer Ira Piltz, 48, first came to Washington Heights to attend Yeshiva University in the 1990s, and described his experiences in the neighborhood to. It’s one of the central institutions in Washington Heights.Įuropean Jewish immigrants arriving in New York in 1887 (Frank Leslie illustration) Today, Yeshiva University is one of the world’s major Jewish places of learning, educating approximately 7,000 students each year in its many undergraduate and graduate programs. The neighborhood’s Jewish community got a big boost in 1929, when Yeshiva College restructured and relocated to “The Heights” from the Lower East Side. Waves of impoverished European immigrants began pouring into the area, including Jews from Germany. By the early 1900s, when the subway connected Washington Heights to the rest of Manhattan, the neighborhood began to feel more urban. Washington Heights was gradually built up in the 1800s many of the area’s residents built grand estates and homes. Meanwhile, the area around Fort Washington became a desirable place for New Yorkers looking for housing. He died in 1786, at the age of 44, in a debtor’s prison. Unable to repay him, the new US Government defaulted on these loans, plunging Salomon into ruin. Salomon raised the funds required to keep the army going, securing the loans himself. During the Battle of Yorktown in 1781, the Continental Army was completely broke and unable to pay American troops. Over the next four years, Salomon raised $650,000 for the country, a staggering sum in those days. In 1781, George Washington named Salomon the Superintendent of Finance for the new United States of America. In addition to speaking German, Salomon knew French and he soon became a major point of contact between the Continental Army and French forces who fought the British with them. He and his family moved to Philadelphia where he started a new brokerage house. Released then arrested again, Salomon was sentenced to death but managed to escape the British jail. Unbeknownst to his British captors, Salomon used his skills of persuasion to encourage British soldiers to desert and for German mercenaries to support the cause of American independence. Imprisoned for a year and a half, Salomon worked as a translator between the British and the German mercenaries who were fighting in the war during that time. When war broke out, the British arrested Salomon as a spy. Much of his financial acumen went to finding ways to raise money to support the revolutionary cause. He settled in New York and joined the Sons of Liberty, supporting himself by setting up a brokerage house. Soon after arriving in America 1775, Salomon became an enthusiastic backer of American independence. One of the key American patriots fighting in New York was a Jewish immigrant from Poland named Haym Salomon. The site was a key base in defending Manhattan from British forces. During the American Revolutionary war, Continental Army troops constructed a sturdy fortification at its peak and named it Fort Washington after General George Washington. The highest point on the island of Manhattan is in Washington Heights. Here are six little-known Jewish facts about Washington Heights' vibrant Jewish history and community today. The neighborhood has also long been home to thousands of Jews. In the Heights, Lin Manuel Miranda’s joyous Broadway play and new film, focuses on Manhattan’s Washington Heights large Latino community.
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