The Jewish Encyclopedia
of Western Pennsylvania
A project of the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center
Mars is a borough in Butler County. It was settled in 1873 with a gristmill along Breakneck Creek and a subsequent Post Office called Overbrook. With the construction of the Pittsburgh, New Castle and Lake Erie Railroad through the area, the area was renamed Mars to avoid confusion with another Overbrook. It was incorporated in 1895.
The borough maintained a small Jewish population starting in the early 20th century.
Lewis and Esther (Sarbin/Serbin) Nauhaus (children J. N., Aaron, Herschel, Samuel, Rose, Mollie, and Sarah) operated a department store in Mars in the 1910s and 1920s before relocating to Aspinwall.
A. Max and Freda Schmuckler (children Goldye, Nathan, David, and Samuel) operated A. M. Schmuckler Co., selling used oil well equipment from the 1910s into the 1960s.
Charles and Rose (Snyder) Cohen family (children Alice, Nathan, Harry, Edythe, and Lena) lived in Mars from the 1920s into the 1970s. Harry and Fay (Ballon) Cohen and Nathan and Fannie Cohen remained in Mars from the mid-1930s until the 1970s.
Louis and Ida (Eber) Goldbloom ran a family general store in Mars in the 1910s and 1920s. The Eber family operated a store in Evans City with a branch in Mars.
Some of the other known Jewish residents of Mars include Max and Minnie (Feldman) Edelstein and Harry, Belle (Fineman) Edelstein, and the J. S. Weinstein family.