History of the Jews in Oregon

Jewish immigrants arrived in the Oregon Territory as early as 1849, before Oregon was granted its statehood in 1859. The first Jews who settled there were mainly of German origin, and largely practiced Reform Judaism. By the mid-1850s, Oregon had a number of Jewish communities in small towns, including Jacksonville in southern Oregon,^[1] and later Burns, Heppner, and Baker in eastern Oregon. Portland, the state's largest city, served as a hub for Jews due to its larger Jewish community. The Reform Congregation Beth Israel, which founded the state's first synagogue in Portland in 1861, is one of the oldest Jewish congregations in the western United States, and its cemetery has the distinction of being the oldest continually running Jewish cemetery in the country.^[2]

Early European Jewish immigrants rarely faced antisemitism in the Oregon American frontier, as other settlers tended to consider them as fellow white pioneers.^[3] The Jewish populations' engagement in town building, involvement in pack train operations, and battling in Oregon's American Indian Wars further ingratiated them into their respective communities.

Beginning in the 1880s, an influx of Eastern European Jews from Russia, Ukraine, Poland entered Oregon, many of whom were conservative ideological socialists who practiced Orthodox Judaism. This led to some friction between the established American Jews in the state, who founded programs promoting Americanization to the communities of Eastern European newcomers, as they felt their Old World customs could potentially stoke antisemitism. In the early 20th-century, the expansion of Portland as a major city resulted in many Jewish Oregonians relocating there and establishing new communities. From the midcentury onward, the Jewish population in Oregon steadily increased, with new congregations being founded in numerous cities throughout the state. The Orthodox Jewish population in Portland in particular has increased since 2005.^[4]