Auction 2012: "Maxwell Street to the Gold Coast, Rags to Riches". Cutesy title, right? But what does it have to do with Oak Park Temple?
Our congregation's "first building was erected on Des Plaines Street between Madison and Washington streets..." That was only 1.3 miles from the Maxwell Street Market! You'd better believe that Maxwell Street was a big part of OUR history!
Beginning in the 1880s, "Russian" (i.e., Eastern European) Jews became the dominant ethnic group in the Maxwell Street neighborhood, which remained predominantly Jewish until the 1920s. This was the heyday of the open-air pushcart market for which the neighborhood is most famous. Given the timing of the decline of Jewish prominence in the area, it should come as no surprise that it was in 1918 that our congregation purchased the land for the Washington Boulevard Temple, 6.3 miles northwest of the market. Much further away. And, with the move to our current location in Oak Park, we're now 11 miles away.
Join us in a stroll back to the old neighborhood. And, while we're there, let's raise money for Oak Park Temple and the Glasser Preschool. Let's eat, drink and have fun in a way that would make the old neighborhood proud.
And, if the word "gribenes" doesn't make you think, "guilty pleasure" and "heartburn heaven," you haven't lived. You simply have to come to further your 'Jewish delicasies education!' (Gribenes is frequently mentioned in Jewish stories and parables. Gribenes = A favored food in the past among Ashkenazi Jews.)
SAVE THE DATE! SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2012
OAK PARK TEMPLE & GLASSER PRESCHOOL SILENT AND LIVE AUCTION!!
LIVE ENTERTAINMENT!!
COME AND BRING YOUR FRIENDS!!
THIS IS GOING TO BE "THE" FUN RAISING/FUNDRAISING EVENT OF THE YEAR!!
BE THERE OR BE SQUARE!!
L'shalom,
Jeff Blaine
