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Perth Amboy history thanks

Thanks much for your articles about our Perth Amboy Jewish community history. I received copies of it from at least half a dozen old friends. I guess that tells you how important our community foundations are.

Since our history is still in process, it encouraged me to submit my memories to the editor. It seems your article will remind young and old alike how important Jewish community is to our children in the past as well as in the future.

I am now living in Cleveland, but my Perth Amboy Jewish community foundation tied me to Judaism, learning, friend and family memories forever.

Thanks much.

Sylvia Barkan Rimm
Cleveland

Nostalgia for Perth Amboy

As someone who was born and raised in Perth Amboy, I read your excellent article about Perth Amboy with a mixture of great interest and much nostalgia. I am pleased that your paper recognizes the importance of this project and has provided the opportunity for the greater Jewish community to be made aware of it.

To those of us, like me, who grew up in Perth Amboy and whose deep family roots there go back to the early 1900s, this book, when completed, will evoke many pleasant memories of a once strong and close knit Jewish community.

I would like to clarify one statement in the article regarding the work of one of the two Perth Amboy cantors. Cantor Hirsch L. Chazin of the orthodox synagogue, Congregation Shaarey Tefiloh, was a beloved cantor with a wonderful bass voice who sang until age 93 and died in 1978 at the age of 97. I feel sure that many of us still have vivid memories of growing up listening to his moving rendition of Kol Nidre.

It was, however, Cantor Gershon Ephros of the conservative Congregation Beth Mordecai, who was a prolific musical composer, writer, and teacher. He published extensive collections of original cantorial music, liturgical choral pieces, secular instrumentation work, and edited a well-known five-volume Cantorial Anthology. Much of his work is still used today. Cantor Ephros retired from Perth Amboy in 1960 and died, as did Cantor Chazin, in 1978.

Again, many thanks to Lauren Matthew and to The Jewish State for your fine article.

Shirley Jacobson Laiks
West Paterson