Kemp Mill is a census-designated place and an unincorporated census area in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. It is known for its creekside walkways, calm suburban atmosphere, Brookside Gardens, and numerous hiking trails. Home to the largest Orthodox Jewish community on the East Coast between Baltimore and Miami, it hosts more than half a dozen synagogues within its boundaries. The population was 13,378 at the 2020 census.
Kemp Mill census area consists of multiple subdivisions, including Kemp Mill Estates, Kemp Mill Farms, Kemp Mill Forest, and Springbrook Forest. The community also includes University Towers, with 523 condominium units, and the Warwick, with 393 rental units. The neighborhood has over 1,693 houses.
History Early history Prior to the arrival of European settlers, the area that is now Kemp Mill was inhabited by Indigenous peoples, including the Piscataway and the Nacotchtank. Captain John Smith of the English settlement at Jamestown was probably the first European to explore the area, during his travels along the Potomac River and throughout the Chesapeake region.
Evan Thomas, a Quaker minister and political activist, settled the land and established a frame saw and grist mill in 1745, which he named Thomas’ Mill. The mill was sold to Aaron Dyer in 1816, who sold it to Francis Valdenar in 1833. In the 1830s, a small settlement called Claysville sprang up around the mill. The settlement was renamed Kemp Mill in 1857 when George Kemp purchased the mill from Valdenar, and the Kemp family managed the mill until 1905. The mill eventually burned down in 1919, marking the end of 174 years of continuous operation., The Historical Marker Database
19th century In the 19th century, much of eastern Montgomery County was dominated by agriculture. The area's rolling terrain was ideal for both small and large farms, while the surrounding woodlands provided essential lumber for homes. Early settlers also established mills along the Northwest Branch Anacostia River and Paint Branch, utilizing the streambed gradient to harness hydropower.
In July 1864, during the Civil War, Silver Spring, Maryland (including Kemp Mill) experienced a significant incursion by Confederate forces. As General Jubal Early's troops spread across the fields and orchards, reactions among the residents varied, with some cheering, and others fleeing to the capital. The Confederate soldiers ransacked properties, including the estate of Montgomery Blair, Lincoln's postmaster general, which they set ablaze. Additionally, Early used the home of Blair's father as his headquarters to coordinate an assault on Washington's defenses.
20th century The first subdivisions in the greater Kemp Mill area broke ground in 1931. During this era, the nearby Washington suburb of Silver Spring has been described as a sundown town. Prior to World War II, racial covenants were used in Washington, D.C. and Silver Spring to exclude African Americans, Jews, and others. In 1948, the Supreme Court's Shelley v Kraemer decision rendered racial covenants legally unenforceable, but African Americans, Jews, and others in the Washington metropolitan area continued to be excluded under the covenants until the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968., MOCO 360
In the early 1930s, property owners in the Kemp Mill area began establishing very large lot subdivisions (five-acre lots) in various areas just outside the initial suburban ring. These developments were intended to be exclusive neighborhoods with a park-like ambiance. Gray's Estates in Kemp Mill was one such example. Yeatman Parkway, following a tributary to the Northwest Branch, was dedicated as part of Gray's Estates. Today, the parkway is the only remnant of this type of development in Kemp Mill.
A few years after World War II, developers plotted subdivisions with one to five-acre lots near the stream valley parks, anticipating future access to planned sewer systems, as noted on the record plats. Springbrook Forest in Kemp Mill, adjacent to the future Northwest Branch Park, dates back to this phase of suburban expansion.
Kemp Mill Farms and Kemp Mill Estates were first developed in the late 1950s, approximately a decade after the 1948 Supreme Court Shelley v Kraemer decision. The neighborhood was among several communities in Montgomery County's Silver Spring area that were built by Jewish real estate developers catering to Jews moving to the suburbs from Washington, D.C. The majority of residences in Kemp Mill are single family homes dating to the 1950s, although newer homes were built in the 1980s and 1990s on Yeatman, Bromley, and Kersey roads.
Kemp Mill Estates was developed by Jack Kay and Harold Greenberg of the Kay Construction Company, the son and son-in-law of real estate developer Abraham S. Kay. According to the historian David Rotenstein, some Jewish developers in Silver Spring, including the Kays, used anti-Black covenants prior to the Fair Housing Act of 1968. As he said, "to be sure, Jews were barred from many places, too, but our shared Judaism doesn’t immunize us from racism." However, Rotenstein acknowledged that some Jewish developers also built integrated housing. For example, Morris Milgram began purchasing existing apartments in Silver Spring and integrating them during the early and mid-1960s, and Jewish organizations such as Jews for Urban Justice formed to protest alongside civil rights groups, advocating for equal access to housing.
Orthodox Jews began moving to Kemp Mill in 1961, when the Young Israel Shomrai Emunah synagogue relocated from Washington, D.C. Rav Gedaliah Anemer, the spiritual leader of the congregation, recognized early on that the changing demographics in Washington would eventually necessitate a new center of Jewish life. Despite the area being primarily farmland with limited infrastructure, Rav Anemer envisioned a vibrant Torah community in Kemp Mill. He began hosting minyanim in his basement before the first synagogue was completed on University Boulevard.
Under Rabbi Anemer, a robust Jewish education was established in the area. At a time when the only Jewish school was the coeducational Hebrew Academy through ninth grade, and high school options were either public school or long commutes to Baltimore or New York, he founded the Yeshiva of Greater Washington. The girls’ high school opened in 1964 with just six students, and a boys’ yeshivah followed soon after. Both institutions moved between makeshift facilities in their early years, but community support ensured their growth. Today, they serve hundreds of students and are cornerstone institutions of the Kemp Mill Orthodox community.
To support their religious practices, Orthodox Jews in Kemp Mill developed tight-knit communities and constructed eruvim, ritual boundaries that allow for the carrying of objects on Shabbat. These eruvim were creatively made using utility poles, freeway barriers, fences, and strings. An eruv inspector, often seen in tzitzit, kippah, and an orange vest, checks the eruv on Thursdays or Fridays to ensure it is kosher. According to historian David Rotenstein, "there are signs of Jewish adaptations to the landscape everywhere if you know where to look".
As the Jewish population in Kemp Mill grew, so did the need for kosher food establishments. Anemer led the Vaad HaKashrus of Washington, implementing strict supervision protocols that are still respected today. By 1989, 25% of the 2,000 families in Kemp Mill were Orthodox Jews, and by 2005, half of the community's 10,000 residents identified as such.
Alongside this demographic growth, new synagogues were established to serve the expanding Orthodox population. On March 17, 1990, Kemp Mill Synagogue held its first service on Parashat Parah, in a house purchased as a temporary facility for the new congregation. In 1994, Rabbi Jack Bieler became the first rabbi of KMS. The congregation moved into its current building on Kemp Mill Road in September 1998.
21st century In 2005, Chabad of Silver Spring was founded by Rabbi Berel and Chaya Wolvovsky on Lamberton Drive. Today it also operates The Gan Montessori preschool and Camp Gan Israel of Silver Spring.
In 2011, Kehillas Ohr HaTorah was established by a group of former students of the Yeshiva of Greater Washington. The first Shabbos morning minyan was held in November 2012, in the University Towers on Arcola Avenue. Rabbi Michoel Frank was appointed Rav and Mara D’Asra in August 2014. After outgrowing its original location, the shul moved to the Kemp Mill Shopping Center in 2016 and later purchased land from the Silver Spring Jewish Center to build a permanent facility. Ohr HaTorah dedicated the building on May 12, 2017.
During the summer of 2020, multiple Black Lives Matter rallies were held at Northwood High School in Kemp Mill as part of the nationwide protests against racism and police brutality. A 2020 statement of solidarity with African Americans issued by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington was signed by Kemp Mill Synagogue.
Hate crimes In 1977, the Yeshiva of Greater Washington, then located on Kemp Mill Road, was vandalized with swastikas, antisemitic slogans, and obscenities. It was later damaged by arson, prompting the yeshiva to relocate to its current campus on Arcola Avenue.
In 1978, a black DC school official living in Kemp Mill was the target of a hate crime when the N-word and "KKK" were painted on her house and her tires were slashed. Similar incidents, including several cross-burnings attributed to members of the Ku Klux Klan, occurred in towns surrounding Kemp Mill during these years, primarily Prince George's County. The average price of a home in Kemp Mill at this time was between $85,000 and $90,000.
In March 1989, a young Asian man was beaten in nearby Sligo Creek Park by a group of youths and young adults shouting anti-Asian racial slurs. Ten individuals were arrested related to the crime. A few months later, there was a spate of antisemitic incidents rumored to be due to skinheads. Swastikas were painted on several vehicles, 40 cars had their windows shot in with BB guns, the graffiti "All Jews Must Die Now" was painted on a sidewalk, and an Orthodox Jewish school was vandalized. A suspect was tried for vandalizing the Orthodox Jewish school after he confessed to the crime to ten people over several months, according to trial testimony. However, police found no physical evidence linking the suspect to the crime, and nobody was convicted. At the time, authorities described the incident at the school as "extraordinarily destructive."
A community meeting was held and the local police claimed that "youths" were to blame for the antisemitic incidents and that there were no organized neo-Nazis or skinheads in the region. However, a man living in Kemp Mill had recently been convicted for antisemitic vandalism of the Kemp Mill Urban Park, an act the police claimed was inspired by the 1988 film Betrayed, which follows the actions of a white supremacist organization.
In June 2022, shortly before the Shavuot holiday, antisemitic fliers advertising neo-Nazi websites were placed at several locations in Kemp Mill, including at a bus shelter located in front of the Young Israel Shomrai Emunah synagogue and on an ice chest outside of the Shalom Kosher grocery store. The fliers used antisemitic slurs, denied the Holocaust, and called for genocide against the Jewish People.