After Pauline Yearwood's recent startling scoop in the Chicago Jewish News, which revealed that First Lady-elect Michelle Obama is a first cousin, once removed, of Rabbi Capers Funnye, it appeared unlikely that another significant Jewish connection to the Obamas would be found.

A minor connection involved the fact that the Obamas' house, located on the South Side of Chicago at 5046 S. Greenwood Avenue, is located across the street from KAM-Isaiah Israel Congregation, Chicago's oldest Jewish congregation. The Secret Service agents guarding the house use the facilities at the temple. Greenwood is barricaded at both 51st Street and 50th Street and only residents and temple members are allowed to pass through. Temple members have to identify themselves to the Secret Service agents who then call the temple to verify that the visitors are legitimately there and have temple business.

But research shows a far more significant connection between the Obama house and the Jewish community.

Indeed, the title history of the Obama house shows it has a rich Jewish history, one that encompasses both of Chicago's rival communities, the Reform Hyde Park German Jews and the Orthodox West Side Russian Jews.

The earliest document in the county records pertaining to 5046 Greenwood is a construction loan, dated Oct. 4, 1905, obtained by real estate developer Wallace Grant Clark from Moses E. Greenebaum. A prominent mortgage banker and real estate developer, Greenebaum was a member of a pioneer Chicago family which became a leader in both the general and Jewish communities. Moses's father, Elias Greenebaum, came to Chicago in 1848 and eventually entered the mortgage and banking business. Elias's father, Jacob, followed Elias to Chicago, so Moses was already a third generation Chicagoan. Elias was a founder of Sinai Temple, Chicago's first Reform congregation. Elias, Moses and Moses's son Edgar were all presidents of Sinai.

The house was constructed about 1908. In 1919, 5046 Greenwood got its first Jewish owner. Max Goldstine purchased the house along with the vacant lot on the northwest corner of 51st (aka East Hyde Park Boulevard) and Greenwood. The deed from the sellers, Mae Press Hodgkins and William L. Hodgkins, was dated October 21, 1919.

Max Goldstine was a successful Chicago real estate entrepreneur. By today's standards, he made a pretty good investment, buying the property for approximately $13,750, based upon the $15 worth of revenue stamps on the deed. In those days, real estate transfers were taxed by the federal government at $1.10 per thousand.

Both Max Goldstine and his wife, the former Ethel Kline, were born in Hungary and immigrated as children to the United States, where they were married in September, 1901. The Goldstines had three daughters: Lucille, born in 1902, who married Harold Rosenheim; Viola, born in 1905, who married Robert L. Leopold; and Maxine, born in 1908, who married Harold L. Newmann.

Grandson Fred M. Newmann, age 71, a retired professor of education who now lives in Madison, WI, was a very active campaigner on behalf of Obama. While he knew that his mother had grown up on Greenwood Avenue, he never put two and two together until the authors contacted him. He was very excited to learn that the current occupant of his mother's childhood home is the new President-elect.

Granddaughter Nancy Rosenheim, age 83, is married to Robert J. Greenebaum, age 91, son of Edgar N. Greenebaum, Sr., who was the son of mortgage banker Moses Greenebaum mentioned above. Nancy and Bob Greenebaum, who live in Highland Park, have grandchildren who are seventh generation Jewish Chicagoans. Bob was a halfback on the University of Chicago's next-to-last Big Ten football team, an aviator in World War II and treasurer of Inland Steel Co., and is a trustee of the Michael Reese Health Trust.

Nancy recalled that her mother, Lucille Goldstine Rosenheim, told her the family home sported a ballroom on the third floor. Later, Lucille was a dancing teacher on Chicago's South Side. Lucille also published some career stories for teenage girls that Nancy hopes to share with the First Daughters; she thinks they will especially enjoy the dreams of another girl who grew up in the same home.

Dorothy Eckstein Herman Lamson of Highland Park, age 95, grew up at 5125 S. Greenwood and was a childhood friend of Maxine Goldstine. She vividly remembers that Max had constructed a wooden toboggan slide on the adjacent vacant lot and that neighborhood children enjoyed winter sledding there for many years in the early 1920s.

Max and Ethel Goldstine sold the property by deed dated April 1, 1926, to Virginia H. Kendall and Elizabeth K. Wild, as joint tenants. No revenue stamps were affixed to the deed, so the sale price cannot be ascertained.

During the Depression years of the 1930s, the property went through mortgage foreclosure proceedings. The Foreman State Trust & Savings Bank was involved in the mid-1930s. The Foremans were also a prominent Chicago German-Jewish banking family. Family and bank founder Gerhard Foreman (1823-1897) was married to a sister of the aforementioned Elias Greenebaum.

The Hebrew Theological College (HTC), which is now located in Skokie, is an Orthodox rabbinical seminary. It evolved out of several small seminaries and established itself in its present form about 1920. Located on the West Side, its students and supporters were primarily Russian Jewish immigrants and their children.

By the 1940s, a small but dedicated and active group of Orthodox Jews had established itself in Hyde Park. Between 1945 and 1955, several Orthodox and Traditional shuls dotted the Hyde Park landscape, although dwarfed in influence, membership and renown by three large Reform temples, Sinai, KAM and Isaiah-Israel (KAM and Isaiah Israel merged in 1972; KAM's former building, located three blocks away from 5046 Greenwood on Drexel Boulevard, now serves as headquarters of Rainbow/PUSH).

HTC, known colloquially as "the Yeshiva," wanted to establish a South Side base to service this Orthodox community. A Milwaukee philanthropist, Anna Sarah Katz, donated $50,000 to HTC, which enabled it to purchase the 5046 Greenwood property. It obtained title from the First National Bank of Chicago, which had acquired the property by taking over the Foreman bank when it went bankrupt during the Depression.

The Special Warranty Deed to the Hebrew Theological College was dated March 26, 1947. Affixed to the deed were Federal revenue stamps totaling $37.40, which calculates out to a purchase price of about $34,000. Simultaneously with the purchase, HTC conveyed a mortgage to Dovenmuele, Inc., a mortgage company, for $20,000, payable $500 every three months until May 9, 1957. The mortgage was signed by Rabbi Oscar Z. Fasman, long time president of the Yeshiva, and Samuel S. Siegel, secretary. A report in the Chicago Tribune on Monday, Sept. 22, 1947, said: "Mrs. Anna Sarah Katz of Milwaukee has purchased a $50,000 plot of land with a building to be contributed to the Hebrew Theological College expansion drive, she announced at a luncheon held yesterday in the college, 3448 Douglas Blvd."

Elise DeBofsky Ginsparg is a member of a leading Hyde Park Orthodox family and now a book reviewer and lecturer on Jewish life. At a meeting of the Chicago Jewish Historical Society on Oct. 28, 2007, as reported in Chicago Jewish History, she recalled: "After my high school classes, I attended the Hebrew Theological College, the Yeshiva High School Branch, located in a mansion on 51st and Greenwood on the northwest corner, directly across the street from Isaiah Israel. The mansion was donated to the Yeshiva by the Anna Sarah Katz family from Wisconsin...I went all through Hebrew grammar school and attended Hebrew high school for four years...We were blessed with marvelous teachers who taught at the Chicago Jewish Academy, now the Ida Crown Jewish Academy, and came to the South Side to teach us." She also recalled that in the late 1940s, the building on Greenwood was the first home of the South Side Jewish Day School. The school later moved to South Shore and became the Akiba Jewish Day School, which later merged with the Solomon Schechter Day School in Hyde Park to become the Akiba-Schechter Jewish Day School, which still exists in Hyde Park.

The Tribune reported on Oct. 8, 1950, that the Anna Rubin auxiliary, an affiliate of HTC, would celebrate its 20th anniversary at a dinner at the Anna Sarah Katz building. Proceeds were pledged to the college's scholarship fund which provides free meals and tuition to students.

Hyde Park's Orthodox population began to dwindle in the early 1950s, and in 1954, the Yeshiva sold the property to the Hyde Park Lutheran Church by a deed signed May 21, 1954. The purchase price was $35,000, based on the revenue stamps of $38.50 affixed to the deed. The deed was signed by Rabbi Fasman, who was still president, and Samuel T. Cohen, secretary.

The sale price was a far cry from $1.6 million, the price the Barack and Michelle Obama paid to purchase the house.

It is fitting indeed that the Chicago home of President-elect Obama, who has worked hard to bridge the differences among us, has served as a residence to Christians and Jews, native-born and immigrants, as well as a base for both Jewish and Christian organizations. We Jews might even say it was beshert.

Charles B. Bernstein is a Chicago attorney, genealogist of the Chicago Jewish community, and a founder of the Chicago Jewish Historical Society. Stuart L. Cohen is a Chicago mortgage banker whose avocation is Jewish genealogy and Chicago Jewish history. The authors may be reached at ChicagoJewsPast@aol.com. Page 3 of 1