by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

December 11, 2008

There was a striking family resemblance among guests at the Halper Family reunion held Nov. 28 at the Essex County Country Club in West Orange.

“It’s my great-grandmother. We all look like her,” claimed Andrew Halper of Livingston.

But is the connection more than skin deep? When 128 out of 189 known living descendants gathered for a celebration of their founding generation’s 100th anniversary as Americans and New Jerseyans, it became tempting to look for a Halper family gene, a trait defining the family.

“Most of us are nurturing and family-oriented,” Andrew offered.

His cousin, Mitch Cahn, wasn’t quite as generous.

“We’re unemployable,” he quipped, in conversation with Linda Forgosh, executive director of the Jewish Historical Society of MetroWest. (She isn’t a Halper but she is incorporating the family’s story into a project meant to preserve communal memory through family histories [see sidebar].)

Mitch explained that many members of the family run their own businesses and serve as their own bosses. (He himself runs a hat company in Newark; his cousin Andrew owns Zayda’s, the kosher butcher shop in South Orange.)

The family paper goods business employed several generations of Halpers until it went out of business in 1993.

But if there is one trait the Halper kin share, it is a close connection to one another. This was not one of those gatherings of far-flung relatives who can’t wait to see who turns up or haven’t seen each other in 30 years. The Halper get-togethers date back to at least 1946, when members created a banner emblazoned with the words “The Max Halper Family Circle” for what they then called Family Circle meetings. Members paid dues and gathered at the homes of aunts and uncles.

The meetings continued as the family grew, morphing into annual Hanukka parties and summer barbecues. These petered out as the family expanded, but many continue to attend the Passover seder, especially when it falls on a weekend, as it did in 2008. The first night, many family members will tell you, belongs to the Halper clan.

The Halper family in the United States began with Max and Yetta, who arrived at Ellis Island in November 1908 and settled on Prince Street in Newark. Max eventually opened M. Halper’s Paper Goods, a fixture among the family-run Jewish businesses in the neighborhood.

Max and Yetta had 10 children. Some went to work with their father; some started offshoots, also paper companies, one of which was called Halper and Sons. The last of these original businesses, in Edison, closed its doors in 1993.

But other descendants are still running their own paper businesses. In a humorous paean to the family trade, rolls of toilet paper served as centerpieces at the latest gathering.

The reunion included four of the original 10 brother and sisters; the oldest in attendance is 97. The youngest family member, one-month-old Daniel Max Halper of Livingston, was also there. While most members of the family continue to live in Essex County, some came from as far away as Israel, California, Arizona, and Minneapolis.

‘Awesome’

Shelley Rosenbloom Burton, 53, a daughter of Fay, one of the original 10 Halpers, now lives in Minneapolis with her husband, David Burton. Despite the distance, they try to come back for the Passover seder whenever they can.

Her earliest Halper memories revolve around the Family Circle meetings. “I remember the smell of the coffee,” she said. “I remember having a lot of gatherings together. They were very tight as a family. A lot of my social events as a kid were around the family.”

Her husband recalled that before they left New Jersey for Minnesota, “there was a wedding or bar mitzva or bat mitzva every month. It’s amazing. It’s kind of neat. That’s what being a Jewish family is about.”

Shelley’s cousin James Halper flew in from Israel with two of his four children for the reunion. “I had to come,” he said. “Thank God my grandparents had the fortitude and forward vision to leave Eastern Europe. If they hadn’t, we wouldn’t have this big family we have now.”

James remembers working for the family business as a kid, helping his father and uncles. “They tolerated us,” he said. “We helped load trucks. They’d send us a list of things to get in the warehouse and bring in.” Looking back he joked, “I’m sure they would make sure they were things that were hard to find.”

Rose Axelrod, another of Max and Yetta’s 10 children, looked around with satisfaction. “Awesome!” she concluded.

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Preserving a legacy

THE HALPER FAMILY reunion, with its baseball caps and refrigerator magnets, with children running around and grownups chattering, also marked the beginning of a larger communitywide project conceived by the Jewish Historical Society of MetroWest.

“My Family Legacy: Profiles of an American-Jewish Community,” as it is tentatively named, will tell the stories of MetroWest’s multigenerational families and their role in the progress of Jewish life in this community, according to Linda Forgosh, the society’s executive director.

Family histories with photos and stories will be woven together to celebrate Jewish Heritage Month in May. Forgosh hopes such exhibits will become an annual event. The project will include a computer-based tutorial that will explain how to create a family history.

Forgosh was struck by the banner created in the 1940s for the Halper Family Circle meetings.

“The idea of continuing one family’s legacy was already firmly rooted in the minds of family members,” she said. “The Halpers are not strangers to one another. Their family gathering for this 100-year milestone was not a singular event in the life of this family, but rather supports the society’s belief that when all is said and done, it is the past that gives meaning to the present generation.”

— JOHANNA GINSBERG

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