Portage

Portage is a borough in Cambria County. A community emerged in the 1830s with construction of the Allegheny Portage Railroad along the mainline of the Pennsylvania Canal. Portage was incorporated as a township in 1878, and a smaller section was incorporated as a borough in 1890.

Between the 1890s and the 1960s, Portage was home to several Jewish families who became leading merchants in the town. While the borough never had an independent Jewish congregation, it was briefly home to a branch of the Southwestern District of Pennsylvania Jewish Religious Schools and its residents contributed to regional fundraising efforts.

Goldstein

Abraham B. Goldstein (1860-1938) immigrated to the United States from the Russian Empire in the late 19th cenutry and came to Cambria County. By the 1890s, he was operating a furniture store in Portage. With his wife Rebecca (Berger) Goldstein (1870-1934), he had five children, Samuel, Hyman, Max, Russell, and Isadore. A brother Isaac Goldstein lived in Altoona.

Hyman S. Goldstein (????-????) immigrated to the United States from the Russian Empire, settling in Portage with his cousins, Abraham and Rebecca Goldstein. He started Goldstein’s Department Store by 1910. Goldstein became a civic leader in Portage, serving on city council, leading the Chamber of Commerce, and investing in the First National Bank. With his wife Gussie, he had at least six children, Abraham, Bertha, Bernard, Sampson, Merle, and Julius.

Fruhlinger

Ignatz Fruhlinger (1864-1939)—also known as John and Isaac—immigrated to the United States from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He married fellow Austria immigrant Lena Engel in Yonkers, NY in 1889. The couple came to Western Pennsylvania, settling in Cambria County.

Fruhlinger started a grocery store in Portage and later employed his son-in-law Sigmund Schoenfeld. In the early 1930s, the Fruhlingers relocated to Nanty Glo. Ignatz and Lena Fruhlinger had at least nine children. Louis Fruhlinger, Dr. Benjamin Fruhlinger, Mrs. S. Berger, Anna Schoenfeld, Mrs. M. S. Breen, and H. Fruhlinger all remained in Portage for a time, while Ethyl Sloan, Dorothy Fruhlinger, and Nettie Fruhlinger eventually left Cambria County.

Schoenfeld

Sigmund Schoenfeld (????-1956) immigrated to Cambria County from Hungary in the early 1900s. He initially settled in Johnstown and peddled throughout the Portage area. He relocated to Portage in 1906 to work in the grocery store of John/Isaac/Ignatz Fruhlinger. In November 1911, he married Ignatz’s daughter Anna Fruhlinger (????-1959). The couple ran a clothing store in Windber until 1913, when they returned to Portage. They opened a clothing and grocery store on Main Street until 1918, when they acquired a former jail at the corner of Main and Conemaugh. They demolished the existing structure and built a new two-story building on the site. Through the late 1920s, they opened branches in South Fork, Lilly, and Cresson. The South Fork and Lilly stores closed during the Great Depression, but the Cresson store remained active into the 1950s.

Sigmund and Anna Schoenfeld had seven children, Benjamin, Theodore, William, Ferdinand, Norman, Leo, and Catherine. In 1953, they formed Schoenfeld Stores Inc. with Sigmund serving as president. Following his death in 1956, Anna Schoenfeld assumed the presidency and the company construction the 20,000-square-foot Schoenfeld Hiway Furniture Mart along Route 53. The building was destroyed in a fire in November 1975. Ther brothers retired in 1984 and closed the store in town. The building became the Chatterbox restaurant and was still standing in 2025.

Moskat

Harry Moskat (1893-1983) opened the Moskat Jewelry Store in Portage in 1914 after living for a time in Beaverdale. As was common for jewelers of the era, the business also repaired watches and accepted optometry patients. Over time, the business expanded into furniture and appliances. Moskat acquired the neighboring the Portage Miners and Merchants Bank Building in 1940. The jewelry business was discontinued in 1955 to accommodate the appliance business. The building was remodeled in 1956. The company opened a second branch in Nanty Glo in 1957.

With his wife Eva (Weber) Moskat (1896-1981), Harry Moskat had two sons, Alfred and Irving. By the 1950s, Alfred operated the Portage store, and Irving operated the Nanty Glo store.

Wittan

David Wittan (1883-????) immigrated to the United States from present-day Lithuania around 1904 or 1905 and came to Cambria County. By the 1910 census, he was living in Portage with his wife Anna and his sister Beckie, working as a salesman for a department store, likely Goldstein’s. He started his own department store on Main Street. In the 1920 census, Harry Moskat was boarding with the Wittans. Dave Wittan moved into the Goldstein building in 1931

With his wife Annie E. Wittan (????-????), he had at least six children, Edgar, William, Robert, Dorothy, Beverly, and Silvan. Edgar, William, and Robert all served in the U.S. military during World War II. Edgar and Robert were killed in action within the span of a few weeks in September and October 1944. Following their deaths, the Wittans sold their store and relocated to Florida. The location became Horoff’s, followed by Schoenfeld’s House of Bargains.

Pollock

Samuel Pollock (1885-1948) immigrated to the United States from Poland before 1914. While working at a general store in Altoona, Pa., he met Lena Hollander (1888-1943), the bookkeeper for an Altoona wholesaler. When Samuel and Lena Pollock married in 1914, her employer gave the newlyweds $500 in credit and a tip about a vacant storefront in the nearby town of Gallitzin. They opened Pollock’s Department Store, which sold “Everything to Wear for Men, Women and Children.” By the mid-1930s, the Pollocks had opened a second location in nearby Portage.

Sedloff

Herman Sedloff (1897-1990) immigrated to the United States from Kiev and initially settled in New York, where he worked as a typesetter. He relocated the Cambria County around 1915 to operate a Linptype machine for the Barnesboro Star. in the early 1920s, when he started the Nanty Glo Journal newspaper. He briefly published the Ebensburg Cambria Freeman in the 1930s. In August 1952, he acquired Mainline Newspapers from John Ward, which included the Portage Dispatch and the Cresson-Gallitzin Mainliner, as well as a printing press in Portage.

Bibliography

Rauh Jewish Archives

• Barry Rudel Papers [MSS 1394].
• “Portrait of a town : Portage, Pennsylvania, 1890-1990,” [Portage, Pa.] : Portage Centennial Book Committee, c1990. [F157 .C19 P7 1990 f] (catalog record).

Dickenson College

• Hyman Goldstein profile (online).

Portage Area Historical Society

• The Portage Area Historical Society (online) holds artifacts from the Goldstein, Moskat, Schoenfeld, and Wittan stores. A commemorative brick wall outside the historical society includes contributions from many of these families.

Exhibit history

• Author: Eric Lidji
• Original: October 22, 2026
• Current: October 22, 2026

Acknowledgements

• This entry was made possible through a grant from the United Jewish Federation of Johnstown, Beth Sholom Congregation, and the David A. Glosser Foundation.