Maine
New history trail shows resilience of Portland’s Jewish community
Standing on the other side of Fore Street across from Dock Fore Tavern, you might not pay attention to the faint yellow lettering of “Zeitman’s Grocery Store” that can be read on the bricks above the sports pub’s red awning. But once Riva Krut points it out, you won’t miss it again.
Moments later, as Krut tells the story of the grocery store run by a Jewish couple who immigrated from Ukraine at the start of the 20th century, the history of the building is also illuminated. The tale of 336 Fore Street is one of familial love, loss, prevalence in the face of antisemitic rulings from City Hall, and a Jewish businesswoman who stood under 5 feet tall, lived to 97 years old, and shaped the commercial district of Portland.
This stop along the new Portland Jewish History Trail is one of 28 that highlight the often unnoticed Jewish history of Portland.
The trail unveils the history of Jewish neighborhoods, congregations and synagogues, businesses, and involvement in the welfare and politics of the city from the end of the 19th century through the present. Using standing buildings, historic photos and research, the trail weaves together a portrait of Portland’s Jewish community as they made space for themselves while also developing their identity as Americans and Mainers alongside other immigrants in Portland.
” data-image-caption=”<p>PORTLAND, ME – SEPTEMBER 14: The fomrer Shaarey Tphiloh Synagogue on Newbury Street, which is now condominiums, is one of the srops on a walking tour of new Portland Jewish History Trail. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer)
” data-medium-file=”https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_4.jpg?w=300″ data-large-file=”https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_4.jpg?w=780″ height=”683″ width=”1024″ alt=”” class=”wp-image-7495749″ srcset=”https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_4.jpg 5472w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_4.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_4.jpg?resize=768,512 768w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_4.jpg?resize=1024,683 1024w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_4.jpg?resize=1536,1024 1536w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_4.jpg?resize=2048,1365 2048w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_4.jpg?resize=1200,800 1200w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_4.jpg?resize=2000,1333 2000w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_4.jpg?resize=780,520 780w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_4.jpg?resize=400,267 400w” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px”/><figcaption class=)
The fomrer Shaarey Tphiloh Synagogue on Newbury Street, which is now condominiums, is one of the stops on the new Portland Jewish History Trail. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer)“Portland’s history and future has been and will be made of many, many communities,” said Krut of Cumberland, who created the trail.
Launched with its first tour on Sunday, the trail consists of 28 locations, divided into five walking routes sorted by location and topic: the East End and Munjoy Hill, Middle and Fore Street businesses, Portland’s downtown, Woodford’s Corner and Deering Center, and Jewish cemeteries.
While anyone can walk the five trails with the map and historic background available online or in an app, the guided walking tours begin in front of Maine Jewish Museum and currently combine segments of three trails in a two-and-a-half-hour, three-mile loop.
During the inaugural tour, 20 participants stood outside 11 Portland buildings as they listened to Krut, 67, tell stories of their residents and activities over the centuries. With so many buildings standing in Portland for over 100 years, the tour “let the bricks talk.”
“We’re here all the time. It’s nice to see it in a new light,” said tour participant Kim Levy, 52, of Cape Elizabeth.
The trail emerged from the research of Krut’s husband, Harris Gleckman, who grew up Jewish in Portland. After a career working for the United Nations in New York and retiring in Maine, Gleckman began researching Jewish history in the state as a hobby, compiling the database using sources such as census records and annual business directories.
” data-image-caption=”<p>PORTLAND, ME – SEPTEMBER 14: Historian Riva Krut, center, stops on India Street while speaking about the former North School, which is now an apartment building, during a walking tour of the new Portland Jewish History Trail. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer)
” data-medium-file=”https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_1.jpg?w=300″ data-large-file=”https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_1.jpg?w=780″ height=”707″ width=”1024″ alt=”” class=”wp-image-7495750″ srcset=”https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_1.jpg 3000w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_1.jpg?resize=300,207 300w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_1.jpg?resize=768,530 768w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_1.jpg?resize=1024,707 1024w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_1.jpg?resize=1536,1060 1536w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_1.jpg?resize=2048,1413 2048w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_1.jpg?resize=1200,828 1200w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_1.jpg?resize=2000,1380 2000w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_1.jpg?resize=780,538 780w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/09/42964434_20250914_historytrail_1.jpg?resize=400,276 400w” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px”/><figcaption class=)
Historian Riva Krut, center, stops on India Street while speaking about the former North School, where in the early 20th century up to 40% of students were Jewish, records show. The building is now home to apartments. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer)
Over 20 years, the project became Documenting Maine Jewry, a website containing over 40,000 biographical records, and 10,000 photographs, newsletters, and other documents, and pictures of over 7,800 Jewish headstones.
The Maine Jewish Museum adopted Documenting Maine Jewry’s catalogue this spring in collaboration with Colby College, exemplifying the museum’s emerging effort to tell the stories of all Jews in Maine, not just Portland, said the museum’s executive director, Dawn LaRochelle.
“We really want to capture Jewish history in all of Maine, and hopefully these walking tours will ultimately be replicated in different parts of Maine, not just Portland,” said LaRochelle.
The Jewish History Tour – the first Jewish historic tour offered in Portland and first tour by the museum – was created by Krut in honor of her husband’s research. A historian of Jewish immigrant history herself, she is versed in linking location and dates to create an understanding of the past.
“Place and identity for me are connected. A place is also about time. What that building meant in 1912 is different than today,” she said.
Stops on the guided tour include the North School, a former public school where up to 40% of a class appeared to be Jewish on attendance records; the original location of the synagogue that is now condos and a hair salon; the former Jewish Community Center, a hub of activity and culture on Cumberland Avenue, and City Hall, where Linda Abromson served as the first Jewish female mayor starting in 1982.
Debbie Wineberg, 68, took the walking tour on Sunday with her husband, Howard Wineburg, 71, of Wells. Her Jewish grandparents and mother lived on Portland’s Vesper Street and attended the Etz Chaim Synagogue, where the Maine Jewish Museum now also resides on Congress Street.
Debbie Wineberg said that in the face of increasing antisemitism, she thought twice about attending a public Jewish event like the tour. But ultimately, she felt like it was important to show up.
“We want to support organizations like the Maine Jewish Museum,” she said.
“We’re not big synagogue goers, so we wanted to come and get the education side of things,” said Howard Wineberg.
At a time where the Jewish community faces both prejudice and division over the war in Gaza, the tour and its participants instead focused on what connects Jewish Mainers to each other and to other communities. This was particularly accomplished by viewing Portland Jewish history through the lens of immigration and building community.
“I am not interested in talking about antisemitism. I’m interested in our commonalities, and the immigrant story is that story,” said Bobbie Lamont, 62, who helped lead the tour group.
As the tour moves through locations and time periods, it takes participants through the arrival of Jewish immigrants, primarily from Eastern Europe to Portland to how they integrated and shaped the city over the generations in all areas of life.
Krut said the Jewish history of resilience in the face of prejudice is one that she hopes will resonate with all types of immigrants in Portland today as they face challenges and persist in building a life here.
“I looked at it as a series of events for minorities now to look at and see how the Jews found success in the face of antisemitism,” said Krut.
Both Krut and tour participants noted how the Jewish History Trail intertwines with other historic walking trails in Portland such as the trail about Black and abolitionist history, the women’s history trail, a queer history trail, and a tour of Chinese-American history. Just as the histories of marginalized groups are connected through the city’s past, Krut hopes that the growing network of historic trails will inspire more of these histories to be told.
“Every group has a story, and we should go out and tell it,” said Krut.
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This story will be updated.
The Maine Department of Transportation is moving to slash up to $400 million in projects from its agenda, a shocking and abrupt cutback that is rattling the state’s construction industry at the start of building season.
Roughly $50 million across six pavement projects have already been delayed, according to a memo exclusively obtained by the Bangor Daily News. The agency plans to cut or delay another $150 million in bridge, highway, intersection and multimodal projects later this month. A further $200 million or more in cuts are planned in the next three-year work plan.
Those figures were outlined by Transportation Commissioner Dale Doughty in the May 18 memo to Gov. Janet Mills that has since circulated widely in the transportation sector, which has been getting drip-by-drip details on the wide scope of the cuts over the past three weeks.
It comes at the beginning of the state’s relatively narrow construction season. Companies have hired workers and ordered materials for projects they expected to begin this summer. The severity of the transportation budget problems was not raised to lawmakers during the 2026 legislative session.
Kelly Flagg, executive director of the Associated General Contractors of Maine, called the shortfall “deeply troubling” in a statement.
“We stand ready to work with policymakers, stakeholders, and industry partners to identify both immediate and long-term solutions,” Flagg said. “Maine cannot afford to fall further behind.”
Insiders saw this first.
This story was broken in Maine Politics Insider, the BDN’s daily premium newsletter for the most ardent political news followers. If you are a new BDN subscriber, you can sign up here. Current subscribers can contact our customer service team to upgrade.
The cuts stem from a structural funding gap of at least $130 million in the state’s current work plan, according to Doughty’s memo. Losses are magnified because state money from the gas tax and other revenue sources is matched by federal funds. Lawmakers have long grappled with politically difficult long-term problems with the state’s transportation budget.
A Mills spokesperson said Wednesday morning that the administration was working on a response to questions from the BDN. The department says it needs roughly $240 million more in state capital funding annually to maintain the existing system, and that anything less than $200 million will erode it over time.
Doughty’s memo the only near-term solution is a series of bonds beginning as soon as possible. Lawmakers would have to return to Augusta to authorize that if one is going to appear on the November ballot.
The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com
Michael Capeci is the former chairman of the Bangor GOP.
Let’s be honest about Maine’s current state.
For many families, the cost of living has become unsustainable. Housing is out of reach for many young people. Energy bills keep rising. Many small businesses are struggling under taxes and regulations that make it harder to grow. Rural hospitals are under strain and despite years of increased state spending, the results are not showing up in people’s daily lives.
Concurrently, Maine continues to lose young workers to other states. That is not a statistic, it is a warning sign.
To me, the question in this Republican primary for governor is not about slogans. It is whether we continue with a political approach that has failed to reverse these trends, or whether we nominate someone with new ideas. I think that someone is Owen McCarthy.
Owen is not a political insider. He is an entrepreneur from Patten, a small town where opportunity is not assumed, it is built. He grew up in a working-class family, became the first in his family to graduate from college graduating from the University of Maine, and founded MedRhythms, a healthcare technology company focused on neurological treatment.
He didn’t just talk about opportunity. He built it. That distinction matters, because Maine’s problem is not a lack of debate it is a lack of results. We have seen the trajectory: higher costs, slower growth, and a steady outmigration of young workers. I believe Owen McCarthy represents a break from that pattern.
His Maine 2040 plan focuses on creating 50,000 new jobs in sectors where Maine has real advantages — maritime and defense, advanced forest products, and life sciences. These are export-driven industries tied directly to Maine’s workforce, geography, and institutions. What sets Owen apart is not only what he proposes, but how he approaches governing.
He prioritizes modernizing permitting so projects do not stall. He supports using technology to reduce costs and increase efficiency. He focuses on making it easier to build, hire, and expand in Maine.
That same practical mindset extends to healthcare. Expanding telehealth, strengthening EMS systems, improving provider flexibility, and shifting toward earlier intervention are not abstract reforms. They are system upgrades designed to improve access while controlling costs.
Maine voters consistently respond to competence. They reward candidates who understand problems and present plans to solve them. I believe they are tired of rhetoric that does not translate into results, and skeptical of politics that prioritizes messaging over execution.
Owen’s approach is grounded in solving the issues that shape daily life — affordability, healthcare access, job creation, and government efficiency. That is not just policy positioning. It is a governing model that speaks directly to voters.
Some will point to his lack of political experience. But I believe Maine’s core problems are not the result of insufficient political experience; they are the result of policies that have failed to deliver measurable improvement. Experience inside a broken system, by itself, is not a solution.
If Republicans want to win, this primary must be taken seriously. From my perspective, it is not about choosing a nominee for governor who can energize the base. It is about selecting someone who can compete in a broader electorate that is frustrated and looking for change.
That requires a candidate who can speak beyond the base, not by abandoning principles, but by demonstrating competence and a credible plan to address Maine’s challenges. I believe Owen McCarthy offers that combination. He represents a shift away from managed decline and toward economic execution.
This is not just another primary. It is a decision about whether Republicans position themselves to win Maine or whether they remain trapped in a cycle of repeating the same strategies and expecting different outcomes.
If Republicans want to compete for Maine’s future, they cannot afford to nominate a candidate who only motivates part of the electorate. They need someone who expands it.
I believe Owen McCarthy is that candidate.
And if the goal is to win Maine, then the choice should be unmistakable
The only notable change in the top-seven of the Varsity Maine baseball poll is that Gorham now has eight first-place votes, two more than last week. The order of the seven teams is identical. In fact, the only change in the top-seven over the past three polls is the swap at the top after Gorham’s win over South Portland on May 19.
Furthermore, Gorham, South Portland, Oxford Hills, Cheverus, Bangor, Mt. Ararat and Fryeburg have been ranked in the top seven for four straight weeks, and six of those squads have been among the top seven in every poll this spring.
Meanwhile, Scarborough is ranked for the first time since May 5, and Ellsworth and Thornton swapped spots.
The Varsity Maine baseball poll is based on games played before June 2, 2026. The top 10 teams are voted on by the Varsity Maine staff, with first-place votes in parentheses, followed by total points.
1. Gorham (8) 89
2. South Portland 79
3. Oxford Hills (1) 75
4. Cheverus 55
5. Bangor 42
6. Mt. Ararat 41
7. Fryeburg Academy 30
8. Ellsworth 27
9. Thornton Academy 25
10. Scarborough 12
Also receiving votes: Washington Academy 8, Monmouth Academy 4, Cony 4, Leavitt 2, Falmouth 2.
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