Italians Bless; Jews Remember

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by Allan Appel | Jun 6, 2011 11:15 am

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Posted to: Religion

Allan Appel Photo The Apostle Andrew laid down his net to become, as Jesus called him, a fisher of men.

In that spirit members of New Haven’s St. Andrew the Apostle Society marked the group’s 111th annual blessing of the boats off Long Wharf Sunday afternoon.

Meanwhile, across town but not far from the water, the city’s last surviving Jewish fraternal aid society, Vilner Lodge, celebrated its centennial with a lunch and a display of memorabilia at Tower One-Tower East.

Backing up to beyond the Tomlinson Avenue bridge ten boats were lined up to receive their blessing of holy water. Knot Easy Captain Caspar Amodio took off bearing the society’s 85-pound statue of St. Andrew, St. Michael’s Church’s Father Ralph Collicchio, and other officials, including Teresa Argento.

In addition to organizing the city’s Columbus Day celebrations, Argento (at center in the photo at the top of the story) is president of the society’s ladies division, founded in 1923.

Argento remembers coming to St. Andrew’s blessing of the fleet from when fishing boats filled up the harbor. “I was a baby. I’m sure my mother carried me,” she said as the sailors helped her on board.

Father Collicchio has been voyaging on the 47-foot Knot Easy and offering the wordless blessing with holy water for about 10 years. Any boat can get blessed, he said, “regardless of length or religion.”

Some years a hundred boats have been blessed; last year, 50. This year, due to a maritime happening in Branford, organizers were not expecting so many.

According to the society’s Mary Jo Esposito, the blessing of the fleet precedes the St. Andrew the Apostle festival on Chapel Street, which this year runs from June 23 to June 25.

“Everything they do here, they do the exact same thing in Amalfi,” said Esposito.

Amalfi is the first of New Haven’s sister cities because so many of the original Italian immigrants to the Elm City hailed from that magical town on the Mediterranean Coast. Andrew is the patron saint of Amalfi.

Esposito said that when Amalfi was threatened by a Turkish fleet, a man was winnowing wood by the shore. As the sticks flew into the sea, they caused a storm that sank the Turkish boats; it was a miracle attributed to St. Andrew.

An unidentified sailor on the Knot Easy said there was high interest in a possible local miracle on Sunday as well. “At the end, we do the supreme test: if Teresa [Argento] can walk on water.”

A reporter could not linger long enough to determine if the feat actually occurred.

Vilner Lodge Marks 100 Years

Argento said the St. Andrew the Apostle Society is doing well membership wise, with 275 men and 125 ladies. That’s not as much the case with the Vilner Lodge, which is named for Vilna in Lithuania (now called Vilnius), from which hailed the groups founding Jewish immigrants in 1911.

There used to be many Jewish self-help societies 100 years ago in New Haven, like the Warsaw Society, usually named for members’ hometowns. Vilner Lodge is the only survivor.

“Our members are dwindling because the lodge is old,” said current president Mark Leventhal.

Click here to read an article about the lodge’s annual reading of the names of the dead at the Westville cemetery.

The oldest member present was 90-year-old Solomon Swiman, who was brought into the lodge by Bob Schecter, the grandfather of Bob Bogdanoff, the other leader of the current lodge.

The core work of the societies was and is to bury members at its two cemetery sites on Whalley Avenue at Jewell Street and in the Jewish section of East Haven Memorial Park.

For Bogdanoff’s grandfather’s generation, the lodge also provided parties, social life, and a network of contacts for the first-generation Jewish families living in the Hill’s Oak Street corridor.

“They were the blue-collar Jews in New Haven, the glue of the community, hardworking, caring,” said Leventhal.

Ruth Friedland remembered New Year’s parties and Hannukah parties. “Mother’s Day and Father’s Day were big also,” she said. There was even a doctor associated with the lodge to whom members could go.

As Swiman, Bogdanoff, and Friedland nostalgically perused old party programs, photos, and invitations to the 50th anniversary of the lodge in 1961, this conversation ensued:

“Who had the cleaners on Alden?”

“That was Louis Kronick.”

“No, he had Standard Paint on Congress. But they moved to Orange.”

“Charlie Spivak had a dry cleaners.”

“That must be it.”

“On Winthrop. He had a band [too].”

“No, his brother had a band.”

“Did he play with Art Tatum?”

The lodge rented space first in the Hill and then in the Knights of Pythias Hall on Whalley and Sherman in the 1970s and 1980s.

Membership today is a minimal $25. That entitles you to buy, based on ability, a cemetery plot. Membership has declined to about 90.

Bogdanoff, who said his grandfather Bob Schecter made him a member before he was born, and Leventhal said they are committed to the work, especially to the high level maintenance of the grave sites of their ancestors.

Bogdanoff rued the fact that only a dozen people were in attendance Sunday. Three times that many should be enjoying the cocktail hot dogs and the salad, he said. “It’s important. Our future is numbered unless we do.”

Friedland said the good deal with the cemetery plot might be a “selling point.” Bogdanoff replied, “It shouldn’t be limited [to selling grave plots]. It should include people who care about Jewish heritage in New Haven.

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