24 | NOVEMBER 17 • 2022 

J

ewish Historical Society of Michigan 
(JHSM) docents hopped on a bus 
with 50 passengers to celebrate 
the Jewish history of Mount Clemens on 
Sunday, Oct. 24. We were not prepared for 
the emotional moments at our final stop, 
Beth Tephilath Moses Cemetery.
At the end of a short, narrow road and 
across from an abandoned Big Boy restau-
rant, we entered the cemetery. 
“Here’s my family! Here are the 
Schwartzes. They’re here!” Sam Woll, rec-
ognized in 2017 as a 36 under 36 Jewish 
achiever, had small stones ready to place on 
her grandparents’ graves. Samuel Schwartz, 
she told us, was the person she was named 
after, and her sister was named after Mina 
Schwartz, her grandmother, the next grave.
This was the perfect ending to an inter-
esting tour of “Bath City.” The mineral 
baths in Mount Clemens were the source 
of a tourism bonanza from 1873 to 1974. 
At the height of the bath cures, the small 
town accommodated 40,000 tourists per 
summer: one tourist for each resident. The 
cure consisted of 21 baths in water heat-
ed to 95 degrees. At the Crocker House 
Museum, the tour’s first stop, were photos 
of some of the baths. Tour attendees told 
stories of grandparents going to the Park, 
Plaza, Medea, Arethusa and Colonial 
hotels. Kosher hotels and rooming 
houses were popular in this Macomb 

County small town.
The Arethusa Bath House was built in 
1910 and sold in 1925 to Morris and Sadie 
Feldman from Bridgeport, Connecticut, 
the great-uncle and great-aunt of Barbara 
Cook, wife of former JHSM president Jerry 
Cook. When the group stopped for lunch 
and a tour of the Mount Clemens syna-
gogue, Beth Tephilath Moses, Barbara and 
Jerry found the names of Feldman family 
donors on the memorial wall. 
The synagogue’s history is long and 
storied. Originally, the congregation met 
in a hotel room for services conducted by 
Meyer Davis, the shochet and only butcher 
in town in the early years. In 1912, the con-
gregation was chartered, as was a Hebrew 
school. The cemetery was established in 
1918. Two years later, construction of the 
synagogue began. Detroit’s Temple Beth El 
in Detroit sold its ark and benches to the 
new congregation, whose new three-story 
building housed a large social hall in the 
basement. In 1977, after 56 years in the 
building, the congregation moved to its 
current location on 146 South Ave. Some 
of the original stained-glass windows were 
hung inside the current building. 
On the tour of the synagogue, we 
learned from current congregants about 
the infamous court case involving a suit by 
a male congregant opposed to mixed-gen-
der seating. The case went to the Michigan 

Supreme Court, which found for the 
plaintiff. Beth Tephilath Moses is now a 
Conservative synagogue.
The JHSM tour was led by former 
Mount Clemens resident Trudy Weiss, who 
pointed out her neighborhood and the 
many houses owned by other Jewish fam-
ilies, including her uncle and first Jewish 
mayor, Abe Levine, and his wife, Lillian. 

Jeannie Weiner is JHSM president. 

OUR COMMUNITY

ALL PHOTOS ARE COURTESY OF ELAYNE GROSS PHOTOGRAPHY.

 An
Emotional 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Tour

ALL PHOTOS ARE COURTESY OF ELAYNE GROSS PHOTOGRAPHY.

 Tour
Jewish Historical Society 
docents went on a bus tour 
of Mount Clemens.

JEANNIE WEINER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

ALL PHOTOS ARE COURTESY OF ELAYNE GROSS PHOTOGRAPHY.

Tour participant Sam Woll places stones on the 
headstone of her grandfather, Samuel Schwartz, 
at Beth Tephilath Moses Cemetery.

JHSM past president Jerry Cook, current 
president Jeannie Weiner, Ann Rosenberg and 
Barbara Cook at the Crocker House Museum

JHSM program director Hilary Duberstein

