Everyone knows the North End as Boston’s Little Italy. Almost no one knows it was once nicknamed “Shalom Street.” At Old North Illuminated, we’re setting out to change that. 

When people think of Boston’s North End, they picture Italian bakeries, feast day processions, and narrow streets that smell like fresh bread. That reputation is well earned. But that isn’t the whole story. 

Long before the neighborhood became synonymous with Italian culture, it was home to a thriving Jewish community. In the late 19th century, Salem Street, the very street where Old North Church still stands, carried the nickname “Shalom Street.” Composed largely of immigrants and first-generation Americans from Eastern Europe and Russia, this community built a dense network of synagogues, schools, shops, and social institutions in the heart of the neighborhood. 

Old North Illuminated, which operates the Old North Church Historic Site, has been awarded a Historic Markers Community Grant to help make that history visible again. 

A Neighborhood Hiding in Plain Sight

Some of the clues to this history are easy to spot once you know to look. There is a dead-end alley called “Jerusalem Place,” named for its connection to a former synagogue. A faded Star of David is still visible on the upper facade of a building nearby. Other traces are more subtle: the initials of a Jewish developer and a construction date etched into a tenement facade, or the distinctive design of a building that likely once served as a house of worship. 

Some markers of this history are on the edge of disappearing entirely. The sign for the Rottenberg bank is now covered by a metal sheet. The inscription above the entrance to a former Hebrew school is slowly being obscured by grime from a nearby restaurant vent. Without intervention, these physical reminders of Jewish life in the North End could vanish for good. 

That is exactly what this project is designed to prevent. 

Research, Partnership, and a Chance to Ask Hard Questions

This work is made possible through the Edward Ingersoll Browne Fund, created in 1978 through the will of Boston-born attorney Edward Ingersoll Browne. In recognition of the nation’s 250th anniversary in 2026 and the City of Boston’s approaching 400th anniversary in 2030, the Fund offered grants through Boston’s Office of Historic Preservation to support community research and proposals for permanent historic markers. 

Old North Illuminated is collaborating with Dr. Jessica Dello Russo, a North End native and historian whose work focuses on Jewish archaeology, including her recent publications, “A Jewish Archaeology: The Christian Discovery of Jewish Catacombs in Rome” and “Growing the Global Audience for the Jewish Catacombs of Italy.” Dr. Dello Russo is also a visiting professor in art history and archaeology at Clark University, and her expertise is guiding our research and documentation process. 

This project is also a chance for Old North to look inward. As we dig into the neighborhood’s Jewish history, we are asking questions about our own institution’s past. What interactions took place between Jewish residents and the Old North congregation in the late 19th century? Were Jewish individuals welcomed at the institutions established and operated by church members? How did Old North’s clergy and congregants respond as Jewish families became a dominant presence in the district? 

Questions of assimilation, prejudice, and integration shaped the experience of Jewish immigrants in the North End more than a century ago. Those same questions, in different forms, continue to shape the experiences of immigrant communities in Boston today. At Old North, we believe there is real value in holding those histories side by side and asking what they can teach us about the present. 

Why This Matters to Old North

Old North Illuminated is committed to telling the full and complicated history of our campus and our neighborhood, not just the parts that are easiest to tell. That commitment is part of why we were designated a Site of Conscience by the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, joining a global network of institutions connecting past struggles to present-day movements for human rights. 

The North End’s Jewish history is a significant piece of that fuller story, and one that has largely gone untold. This grant gives Old North the tools, and the partners, to start changing that. 

Old North Illuminated is planning public presentations and feedback sessions this fall, and is seeking community input from the start. If you have memories, family stories, photographs, or documents connected to Jewish life in the North End, or if you simply want to be part of this work, email education@oldnorth.com. 

The North End’s story has always been layered. It’s time we uncovered another one of those layers together. 

Nikki Stewart is the executive director of Old North Illuminated, the nonprofit that stewards Old North Church Historic Site in Boston’s North End.

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