The cultural complexity of Devon Avenue is told by its honorary street names. A brown sign declares Devon from Ravenswood to be Honorary Sheikh Mujib Way, after the founder of Bangladesh; from Damen to Western, it’s Mohammed Ali Jinnah Way, after the founder of Pakistan. From Western to California, it’s Gandhi Marg. And from California to Kedzie, it’s Golda Meier Boulevard.
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Rosenblum’s opened, as Rosenblum’s Hebrew Bookstore, in the early 1940s. Hungarian immigrant William Rosenblum set up shop on Roosevelt Road in Lawndale, in the heart of what Jews fondly call “the old vest side.” According to Irving Cutler, professor emeritus of urban geography at Chicago State University, from the 1920s until after World War II Roosevelt Road was the area’s most thriving Jewish business district. “Within a mile and a half, it boasted six movie houses—including two that showed Yiddish films—ten butcher shops, and four Jewish bookstores, including Rosenblum’s.” More than 120,000 Jews lived in greater Lawndale then, but they would migrate north, and with each move, Cutler explains, Chicago’s Jewish population became less concentrated.
After the war Lawndale’s Jewish population, soon followed by Rosenblum’s and other Jewish businesses, left Lawndale for Albany Park, and Lawrence Avenue became the new strip. In 1973 Rosenblum’s joined Chicago’s last Jewish migration, to Devon Avenue.
For the 21 years that Fox has owned Rosenblum’s, his clientele has come from as far away as Hyde Park and Highland Park. “Devon Avenue has been considered kind of a cultural Jewish experience to come here on a Sunday,” Fox says, and Rosenblum’s has been a place not simply to buy Jewish books but to tap into a heritage. It’s been the place to go to for the paraphernalia of Jewish holidays and bar mitzvahs.
Though the diminished Devon business district reflects Jewish migration to the suburbs, there’s more to the picture than that. A flourishing Orthodox community just north of Honorary Golda Meir Boulevard now reaches all the way to Howard. West Rogers Park is bursting with young Orthodox families—enough to build and support synagogues, community centers, and schools.
