Beginning Again

Community Building

Sokolivka emigres began community institutions as soon as they arrived in Buffalo in the early twentieth century. A small Chasidic community was already established in Buffalo from different parts of Eastern Europe, but like many small Jewish communities who came through family and friends “chain” or personal network linked migrations, the opportunity to recreate organizations with other home town members or landsmann proved attractive. Sokolifkers were no different to other groups and added their own voices to the profusion of separate landsmann organizations on the East Side. Quickly an informal then more formal landsleit Chasidic synagogue, Anshe Sokolivka was founded alongside a burial society, Holy Order of the Living (1909) followed by a benefit and social club, the Ustingrader Unterstitzung Verein in 1913. For more information about each of these organizations, click on the organizational boxes below. Many of the Sokolivkers of the earlier generation arrivals helped raised funds for Sokolivkers who fled the pogroms and settled temporarily in Romania in Kishinev. In addition earlier arrivals were more financially established by the 1920s and could provide a source of potential employment such as the Wagner Folding Box company, founded by Abraham Wagner.

Sokolivkers joined a vibrant East Side Jewish community and established themselves initially as junk collectors, peddlers, fruit vendors and other entry level occupations. Helped by Sokolivker and local organizations like the Hebrew Benevolent Loan Association, the rise of Sokolivkers like other East Side Jews was remarkable. In this religiously and culturally rich neighborhood, Sokolifkers also joined other Jewish organizations like the Workman’s Circle, participated in Yiddish theater, and learned English in the night schools run-through the Jewish Community Building and public schools. For many Sokolifkers the opportunity to become full citizens was a highly sought after prize, one previously circumscribed in their former homes of Sokolivka-Justingrad.

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