California Gold Country

Installation Service of Rabbi Edgar F. Magnin, Temple Israel of Stockton, 1914

Installation Service of Rabbi Edgar F. Magnin, Temple Israel of Stockton, 1914   Ryhim Ahoovim of Stockton, California (est.1851), later known as Temple Israel, struggled to retain rabbis during its early years. Even after erecting a new building on Hunter Street in 1904 and joining the Reform movement’s Union

Read more

Louis Herman Heller: Jewish Photographer of the Modoc Indian War, 1872-1873

Louis Herman Heller Values Codes I – E – L   Louis Herman Heller was born in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany in 1839 – the same year that British scientist Sir John Herschel coined the term “photography” (lit. “drawing with light”).   Along the way . . . Louis Heller

Read more

Jacob Stern: Pioneer Jewish Merchant of Rio Vista in the Sacramento Delta

Jacob Stern Values Codes I – E – L – P   Jacob Stern was born in Bavaria in 1856.   Along the way . . . In 1874, Jacob Stern journeyed to San Francisco, California. Soon thereafter, he moved to Nevada, where he worked briefly as

Read more

Jacob & Joseph Weissbein: Jewish Pioneer Merchants, Bankers & Mine Owners of Grass Valley in the California Gold Country

Jacob & Joseph Weissbein Values Codes I – E – L   Jacob Weissbein was born in Germany in the early 1850’s. His brother, Joseph Weissbein, was born around 1854 in Germany.   Grass Valley In 1873, Jacob and Joseph Weissbein came to America and settled in

Read more

Emanuel Lauer: First Merchant in Alturas, Modoc County, California in the Northern Gold Country

Emanuel Lauer Values Codes I – E – L   Emanuel Lauer was born in 1831 in Bavaria, Germany.   Along the way . . . In 1848, Emanuel Lauer came to the United States. In 1854, he traveled, by way of the Isthmus of Panama, to

Read more

Professor Albert Abraham Michelson: Nobel Prize Winning Jewish Physicist from Calaveras County, California

Albert Abraham Michelson Values Codes I – H – E – L – P   Albert Abraham Michelson was born in 1852 in Strzelno, Prussia, near Posen.   Calavaras County In 1855, Samuel and Rosalie Michelson brought their son to California, where they settled in Murphy’s Camp in

Read more