-Twenty-first in a series–
By Donald H. Harrison
ROSEBURG, Oregon—Having written a biography of Louis Rose, the first Jewish settler in San Diego, I was anxious to learn about Aaron Rose, for whom this town in southwestern Oregon was named. He and Louis Rose were contemporaries. Furthermore, I was intrigued by the fact that an article on the Wikipedia website said that Aaron was of German Jewish background. That also could describe Louis.
The Wikipedia article about Roseburg, Oregon, when accessed in July 2014, read: “The city was named for Aaron Rose, who settled within the current city limits September 23, 1851. Rose, who came from German Jewish ancestry, was born in 1813 in Ulster County, New York. In 1851, he came to Oregon from Coldwater, Michigan, where he had lived since 1837. His house in Roseburg served as a tavern for many years, and was the first roadside inn in the area. Rose died in 1899.”
Where did this information come from? According to a Wikimedia footnote, it was based on Oregon Geographic Names, first published in 1928 and at the time of citation in its seventh edition, published in 2003. The authors of this reference work were Lewis A. McArthur and Lewis L. McArthur.
Aaron Rose’s alleged Jewish roots also were mentioned in The Jews of Oregon, 1850-1950, a book by Steven Lowenstein that was published in 1987 by the Jewish Historical Society of Oregon. On page 30 of that book, an article on Aaron began “Early Oregon Jews left a substantial legacy everywhere they settled. Roseburg, the seat of Douglas County, was named for Aaron Rose, who took up a land claim of 640 acres on the present town site on September 23, 1851.”
So, when grandson Shor, son-in-law Shahar, and I got to this town, I merrily snapped pictures of signs and places that were named for Aaron Rose. I thought that all I would have to do is look over the town and I would have another Jewish story for this Jewish travel series. But, as it turned out, that was far too optimistic.
At a Walmart, I picked up the Roseburg title of the “Images of America” book series put out by Arcadia Publishing. Diane L. Goeres-Gardner and the Douglas County Museum were listed as the authors. In Gardner’s narrative, there was much about Aaron Rose, to be sure, but one “fact” was not included. Nowhere in the text did it say that Aaron was Jewish. The article didn’t mention Aaron’s religious leanings one way or the other. When I inquired by email to the author whether she knew if the town founder was Jewish, she responded: “Many people say Aaron was Jewish, however I didn’t pursue that question because it didn’t matter to me.”
Hmmm.
When I was writing a previous article in this series about The Dalles, Oregon, I had made contact with Professor Ellen Eisenberg, the Dwight & Margaret Lear Professor of American History at Willamette University. Western U.S. Jewish history is a specialty of hers. In passing, I told her that I would also be writing about Aaron Rose and Roseburg, Oregon. She informed me that there was some question about whether Aaron was really Jewish. She suggested that I get in touch with Anne LeVant Prahl, the curator of the Oregon Jewish Museum in Portland.
This I did, and Prahl said it had been pretty well proven that Aaron Rose was NOT Jewish. I asked her where this proof had been published and she said Western States Jewish History. Ahhh, that’s the quarterly on which I am proud to serve as the San Diego editor. I laughed self-consciously, and admitted that I had not read every issue that had been published since Norton B. Stern and Rabbi William Kramer started the quarterly in 1968. I had no memory whatsoever of the article debunking Aaron’s Jewish roots. Prahl said she couldn’t get her hands immediately on the article in question but would try to secure me a copy.
I asked David Epstein, who today co-publishes the quarterly from Los Angeles with Gladys Sturman, if he could find the article in question. At first, he sent me a copy of the article from The Jews of Oregon, 1850-1950, but said he too would have to search for the Aaron Rose article in question.
A day or so later, Prahl contacted me by email. She had found the article from Western States Jewish History that reported that Michelle Glazer, researcher for the Jewish Historical Society of Oregon (which later merged with the Oregon Jewish Museum) , had stated in 1978 that there was no “hard evidence” that Aaron Rose was Jewish and that Arthur Spencer, a researcher for the Oregon Historical Society thought, to the contrary, it was more likely he was Scotch-Irish. “Rose,” noted the WSJH editors, is “of course, an old Scottish clan name, as well as a sometimes Jewish one.” The WSJH article was titled “Periodical Reflections,” which explains why it was so difficult to locate using either “Aaron Rose” or “Roseburg” as key search words.
Of interest was the fact that the WSJH article was published in 1978, nine years before the Jewish Historical Society of Oregon published Steven Lowenstein’s The Jews of Oregon, which continued to list Rose as a Jew and Roseburg as a town named for a Jew. Either Lowenstein hadn’t seen the 1978 article or he ignored it.
Jewish genealogist Carol Davidson Baird recently reviewed 45 family trees in which there are links to Aaron Rose and found that “not one is a Jewish family.” She noted that S.N. Wood of Roseburg included in his tree the following citation about Aaron: “Uncle Aaron P. Rose was a public spirited man. He donated lots to churches (he was rumored to be Jewish himself) and he gave the land on which the first public school was built in Roseburg and donated $1400 toward building the house.” Concluded Baird: “I would tend to think he wasn’t Jewish but that does not discount his ancestors’ religions.”
Some errors, once made, are very hard to correct, obviously. But based on the weight of the evidence, in our opinion, the notion of Aaron Rose’s Jewishness has been debunked. He will remain a gentile man unless some other genealogist can come up with proof to the contrary.
As the author of the biography of Louis Rose, I’d like to state categorically that unlike for Aaron, there exists plenty of proof that Louis was Jewish – from newspaper accounts from his birthplace in Neuhaus an der Oste, Germany, to his ketubah in New Orleans for his first marriage, to his participation in San Diego in the Hebrew Benevolent Society, to his serving as the lay officiant of a Jewish wedding in San Diego.
Furthermore, Louis Rose’s body was moved from the Jewish cemetery, in the Loma Portal area of San Diego, that he, himself, had donated to the Jewish community to its present resting place in the Home of Peace Jewish Cemetery on Imperial Avenue.
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If you go: We stayed at the Windmill Inn in Roseburg, a smoke-free facility offering free wi-fi, continental breakfast, an outdoor swimming pool and a fitness room.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjeiwshworld.com
My three times great-grandfather was his older brother William. Through the years I also had heard the story that Aaron was a Jewish merchant. I had my DNA tested through Ancestry DNA. I was disappointed to learn that I do not have any Jewish DNA.
Philip, Thank you for your thoughtful rebuttal. You have raised the possibility that Aaron Rose was a secular Jew. Secular or religious, anyone is a Jew whose mother is a Jew (or in the case of the Reform, whose father is a Jew, and the child is raised as a Jew), and who has not converted to another religion. So you may be right.
Thus far, we are faced with an absence of primary sources. We have third-party comments that Aaron was believed to be Jewish, but that of course can be open to question. Many non-Jewish American families chose biblical names for their children (yes, even Abram), so without documentation we can’t come to any conclusions from that. Jewish merchants of the Old West often associated with non-Jewish businessmen in Masonic and civic organizations as well as in business partnerships. San Diego’s history, for example, is replete with such Jewish-non-Jewish partnerships, so again without some documentary evidence, some primary source, we have neither proved nor disproved Aaron’s Jewishness.
I welcome your inquiries and those of any readers, and will enjoy learning, one way or the other, about this Oregon pioneer, if such primary sources are located.
Meanwhile, with Chanukah approaching and you being in the city of Modi’in, an important locale associated with that holiday, I wish you, your family, and all your neighbors, a wonderful and joyful hag. All the best,
–Donald H. Harrison, editor, San Diego Jewish World.
It ‘aint over till its over! This study has the only the veneer of conclusive. . His research is only cursory and almost entirely limited to flimsy secondary sources, there’s tons of stuff he missed, his argument is full of holes, and the conclusion fallacious. To wit;
This is an old and well worn circular argument that says more about who Jews consider to “be Jewish”, than it does about if old Aaron was really from our lantsmen, or not.
It is clear that if Aaron Rose was a Jew, he was probably not an outwardly practicing Jew, as evidenced by many of the details we do know about him. (For instance his regular hunting forays for venison with his sons;-) And if he was a Jew, he clearly didn’t pass that on to his Douglas County descendants, who were all sired with his third, and non-Jewish(?) wife. But that is not “hard proof” that he wasn’t one of our boys. A Jew who strikes out on his own to abandon any meaningful continuance of the “religion of his ancestors” should come as no surprise to the independent minded Jews of Oregon today, let alone the wilderness frontier that he helped forge. Even most of the DC Jews of that time that we know were Jews did not continue in the faith. The same goes for most of our own siblings and offspring in Roseburg today!
But first, what is actually being asked here? Is the question intended to ask if he was a overtly practicing Jew, or just one of those new reformists from the Midwest? (Reform movement 1800’s) Or is his Jewishness allowed, if he was detached from all form of religious identification? And if only Jewish by blood and not practice, is he only Jewish if he had a Jewish mother, or if he had parents who were practicing or living as part of a religious community? A lot of Jewish historians will limit the consideration of one’s Jewishness based on this or less. The answer to the question is going to be different depending on the asker and their own prejudices. Consequently, the recorders of history tend to filter what they write by what they believe, or even care about, as in Gardner’s non-Jewish narrative, “that question … didn’t matter to me.” 1 And that goes double for our own scribes. This bias is revealed by genealogist Carol Davidson Baird’s own assessment of Rose, “I would tend to think he wasn’t Jewish but that does not discount his ancestors’ religions.”3 Soooo… what’s the difference Rabbi Baird? Is she saying Rose was not a Jew because he didn’t practice his religious heritage? What is the degree of practice that will continue us in the club or kick us out the door? Is an Eskimo not still an Eskimo if he doesn’t live in an igloo? Is this why, to quote Rabbi Krems, “Jews don’t believe in DNA”? I wonder if Baird the genealogist has a conflict with Baird the Jew regarding DNA?
Secondly, in history as in science and philosophy, or even law, the lack of proof is not the same as proof of the opposite. This circular argument on the Jewishness of Aaron Rose has been beaten like a cheap rug. Its true that there is a lack of ‘proof’ of whether our founder was Jewish or not, but that is not the same as saying it proves he was not. More importantly the lack of proof is not the same as lack of evidence, and there is evidence. Based on the family tree from Rose’s nephew revealing that despite his uncle’s generous donations to many churches, “he was rumored to be Jewish himself”, Baird concludes that Rose was probably not Jewish. Whats that? How does that work? I would contend that this is actually powerful evidence to the contrary! A secularized Jew in a small frontier community trying hard to assimilate and curry favor with his Christian neighbors. I don’t find that hard to understand or believe at all. My own grandfather, only a generation after Rose, who was a leader of the oldest Jewish community in early Washington State, gave generously to many local churches and his son practically built Olympia’s St Peters Hospital. And why would a rumor of Rose’s Jewishness even start if it weren’t substantive? Solely on his name? Most of the Oregon settlers hardly heard of a Jew, let alone an maybe Jewish name. There had to be more to it.
Finally, if look closely again for yourself, and I’ve read the article carefully seven times, aside from being mostly a narrative of the authors search to find out if there is any ‘proof’, the only actual “weight of evidence” actually presented is reduced to two things; 1 The name could also be Scottish. 2. None of his descendants or in-laws are known to have been, or are currently Jewish. (But we already knew that.)
If you can follow the line of reasoning in this article through all the anecdotal narrative, you will see that Harrison tries to sell us a “Weight of evidence”,… derived from what historian Anne LeVant Prahl contends “has been pretty well proven that Rose was not Jewish”,… itself based upon Michelle Glazer’s “hard evidence”… in turn based on the doubts of Arthur Spencer,.. all based on Rose’s Gentile descendants or name alone. It seems, his (as consecutively their) argument is based on a dominoing circular referencing of authorities, each based upon the previous, which conclusion is based on a fallacious argument of a negative derived from the lack of proof of a positive. Back to Intro to Logic 101.
Spencer states that, “to the contrary, it was more likely he was Scotch-Irish” Because “Rose,” noted the WSJH editors, is “of course, an old Scottish clan name, as well as a sometimes Jewish one.” So Aaron Rose is definitively not Jewish because Rose is also a Scottish name? (Aaron certainly wasn’t a traditional Scottish name.) That’s it? Aaron’s Jewish roots are now conclusively debunked”? What about the family record? There were no Jewish relatives. Would that not be expected of the family legacy of a Man who had left his Jewish world behind, re-married a gentile woman and raise a family non-Jewish world with little or no knowledge of his Jewish origins. Why would there be a notation of a rumor of Aaron’s Jewishness in the family record? if Rose was a common Scottish name, why would name alone lead to such rumors? There’s some real jumping around in their reasoning here. And how can such a clear stated record by his own nephew be construed as evidence that he was not Jewish?
Further ‘evidence’;
Beckham claims that Aaron Rose was a “overland emigrant and Jewish Merchant” from Michigan after birth in Ulster county New York. That would be culturally consistent that German Jews who had settled in the Mid-west had often become “Peddlers”, a common Jewish trade brought from the old country where Jews were not allowed own land or join craft guilds (unions), and a trade not often employed by Scottish immigrants. Stephan Beckham; Land of the Umpqua,a History of Douglas County Oregon 1986, p138,
Bacon contends that Rose had a first wife Minerva who passed away in Michigan, with whom he had two daughters Emma and Lucy who never came out, and a second wife Sarah whom he married in Michigan but died without children on the way out or shortly after arrival. In Roseburg he marries Francis Elizabeth Arrington of the prominent Arrington family with whom she had 5 children before ending in divorce. Its very possible that Minerva and Sarah were Jewish as well. Doris Haines Bacon, Umpqua Trapper, DCHS, Vol XXIX, No 4, 1993
It is also noteworthy that Aaron had a brother, Abram Rose, (Abram is also not a typical Scottish name) who later joined him and also married into the Arrington family, marrying Mary Merville Arrington. The patriarch James M. Arrington is known to have entered business ventures with Rose and other prominent Jews of Douglas County. Umpqua Trapper, DCHS p91
According to Beckham, there was a known community of Jews in Douglas County, including O&C Railroad Agent Solomon Abraham, business entrepreneur and founder of Glendale, business entrepreneurs Asher Marks, and Samuel Marks of S. Marks & Co building ($10,000 brick and cast-iron structure) in Roseburg, and stores in Myrtle Creek, and Canyonville, and Glendale, various transportation ventures and, together with S Abraham; the RR loading docks and warehouses in Roseburg. Samuel and Asher Marks, together with 3 other Jewish immigrants Isadore, Hyman, and Alfred Wollenberg bought and developed Canyonville, and other communities and also donated land for churches. Other know prominent Jews were Peter Fireman, Moses Free, Abraham Heardman. These same and other prominent Jews were instrumental, through negotiations with NY Banker Jacob Schiff, in bringing the Jewish immigrants from Ukraine to Glendale to form the Odessa Colony. A. Rose is known to have collaborated in land purchases with S Abraham in bringing the C&O RR to Roseburg. Most interesting is the joint venture of James Arrington (A Rose’s Father-in-law), L.F. Mosher, Antoine A. Fink, Asher Marks, and Samuel Marks, in the Roseburg and Port Orford Railroad Co., (The first Jewish RR in Oregon?) I could not determine if Max Weise of the Roseburg Brewery was Jewish or just German. Though these Jews partnered together in business, but there is no known record, (that anyone has bothered to look for) of organizing or keeping any Jewish religious life (renting a hall for services, etc.) and most importantly, there was no known Jewish cemetery or even Jewish graves. (Until the Garden of David Cemetery.) And some, like the Odessa Colony, were renown secularists. None of their descendants are known to retain any Jewish identification, and though they gave often to many of the local church building projects, none of the original Jewish founders are known to be found on any church membership rosters. Their descendants however, are. Beckham really seems to be in touch with the Jewish history of Southern Oregon. Stephan Beckham; Land of the Umpqua, a History of Douglas County Oregon, 1986, pp 126-7, 130-1,138-9, 202, 220, 248, ‘Appendix D’ 265-6
We see a plethora of hints as to Aaron Rose’s Jewishness, and where there is still ground to mine in Douglas County, (don’t forget city records in Oakland, Myrtle Creek, Canyonville, Glendale, or more likely in Jacksonville, Oregon) in the accounting and registration records perhaps, I think the real conclusion to the question lies back east, first in Branch County, Michigan, c. 1850’s or more likely in Ulster County, New York, c. 1812. I don’t know if anyone has ever really researched this for his jewish roots or not. They would need to check birth, death, marriage documents, as well as synagogue and Jewish cemetery records in those places. Also immigration records in New York, census records in NY & Mich., and perhaps even financial connections with Jacob Schiff(?). His parents were John and Hannah (Palmiteer) Rose and he is known to have had 5 brothers and two sisters. Maybe it would be a good project for the Havurah to pony up for a thorough search of those places or on ancestors.com or the like or even the Mormon Church, to try to rescue Papa Aaron from Jewish obscurity. (His 200th birthday is this year you know. It would be a great gift to Roseburg from the Havurah.)
I would suggest that the real reason that these historians have concluded Aaron Rose’s Jewishness has finally been debunked, is because they might not want him to be. Harrison ends his article with the verdict that where there is proof of the Jewishness of Louis Rose of San Diego, the lack of proof for Aaron is proof of his Goydom. I would posit that the only verifiable difference between the Jewishness of Aaron Rose of Roseburg and Louis Rose of San Diego, was that Louis Rose evidently continued in some outward expression of his Judaism, while Aaron, and the other Jews around him, didn’t seem to care. He gave in, either by circumstance or by intention, to the pressure of assimilation. That, in modern American Judaism, is the one unforgivable sin. They can not allow him to continue to ever have been Jewish. But the truth is, he would not be the first to of our clan to be booted out of the club for lack of pedigree or just unimpressive stats. You should have dropped the Masonic compass and square Aaron, and had a magen david on your monument instead.
Shalom from Modiin Israel,
Philip B. Bean