The Gold Family

Jacob Gold (c.1877-1955) immigrated to Pittsburgh from Lodz, Poland, before the turn of the century. After peddling for several years, he started the Gold Real Estate Company at 1813 Webster Avenue in the Hill District. He sold his first building, a three-story brick house on Webster in 1901. In the early days of his business, Gold regularly advertised in the local Yiddish newspaper Der Volksfreund using the line Vayeishev Yaakov Behar, “And Yakov dwelt on the Hill,” a play on the first words of Chapter 37 of Genesis.

Gold married Tillie Sheffler of Romania. Their sons Albert E. Gold and Manuel Gold both worked for the family business. In 1963, Manuel and his son Sanford Gold started Gold & Company Inc. A fourth generation, Robert Gold, joined the company in the late 1980s. The family brokerage and development firm later merged with CBRE Pittsburgh.

Albert E. Gold was president of B’nai Emunoh Congregation in Greenfield. His wife, Leah Gold, was active volunteer in its Ladies Auxiliary, as well as with the Jewish Home for the Aged.

Jacob Gold served in the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I, and after the war he spent a year in the hospital “for the treatment of a gassed condition received over there.” He was on the Pittsburgh Real Estate Board and was a former Pittsburgh City Assessor and Federal Home Loan Appraiser. In 1935, Gold ran as a Democratic candidate for Pittsburgh city council on a platform to reform property tax assessments, which he believed were fostering slums. “Under my plan any owner who replaces an old home with a new one shall not have his taxes or assessment increased,” he wrote.