Congregation Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom
Encyclopedia
Congregation Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom (also known as "Congregation Beth Jacob Ohev Shalom") ("House of Jacob Lover of Peace") is an Orthodox
synagogue
located at 284 Rodney Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
, New York. It is the oldest Orthodox congregation on Long Island
(including Brooklyn and Queens
), and one of the last remaining non-Hasidic
Jewish
institutions in Williamsburg.
The congregation was formed in 1869 by German Jews as an Orthodox breakaway from an existing Reform
congregation. It constructed its first building on Keap Street in 1870. In 1904 it merged with Chevra Ansche Sholom, and took the name Congregation Beth Jacob Anshe Sholom. The following year it constructed a new building at 274–276 South Third Street, designed by George F. Pelham
.
The congregation's building was expropriated and demolished as a result of the construction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in the 1950s. It combined with another congregation in a similar situation, and, as Congregation Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom, constructed a new building at 284 Rodney Street, just south of Broadway
, in 1957.
Joshua Fishman became rabbi
in 1971. With changing demographics, attendance at services, which had been 700 in the 1970s, fell to two dozen by 2010.
German Jewish synagogue, the Keap Street Temple. They objected to the installation and use of a pipe organ
to accompany Yom Kippur
services
, which was forbidden by halakha
(Jewish law), and seceded and created their own congregation. The new congregation was formally incorporated on October 1 of that year, and first worshiped in a house. In 1870, Beth Jacob purchased a 23 feet (7 m) by 95 feet (29 m) lot at what is now 326 Keap Street (than Tenth Street) for $150 (today $) in cash and a mortgage of $1,050 (today $), and constructed a building there, at a cost of around $6,000 (today $). Men and women sat separately, and the sanctuary had seating for 164 men on the main floor and 135 women in the gallery. Services were generally held only on Shabbat
and the Jewish holiday
s. The first spiritual leader was Rabbi Dresser, and he was succeeded by Lewis Lewinski (or Levinsky).
In its early years, the congregation's financial situation was precarious. The building was located ten blocks from where most of the congregants and potential congregants lived (on Grand Street
, near the ferry docks), and attendance was low. Even on the High Holy Days
, the sanctuary was rarely more than half full. The synagogue employed a rabbi, gabbai
, and cantor
, and annual expenses often exceeded the congregation's income (which came primarily from the sale of seats). To remain solvent, the congregation borrowed money against the equity in the building: $2,000 (today $) in 1888, and another $2,000 in 1894.
The congregation was also marked by public controversies and factionalism. In January 1887, during a heated discussion at a congregational business meeting, one member addressed two others with the informal German "du" (rather than the formal "Sie"), which was considered impolite. Despite attempts by then-rabbi Lewinksi to intervene, the two men beat the first, knocked him to the ground, and "trampled upon" him. The two men were subsequently charged with "assault in the third degree".
Lewinski was succeeded that year as rabbi by Hyman Rosenberg, and in October of the same year a new secretary was elected, in a close-fought battle between two factions. When it was time for the former secretary to hand over the financial books, a member, Simon Freudenthal, was alleged to have grabbed them, jumped out a window, and ran away with them. When he returned, he refused to say why he took them, and insisted he would keep them. A warrant was issued for his arrest on the charge of larceny
, and he was released on bail. Ten days later the synagogue president, American Civil War
veteran Colonel Solomon Monday, was arrested and charged in turn with libel, for allegedly claiming that Freudenthal stole "sacred books". Monday, in turn, had Freudenthal charged in November with stealing $8 (today $) worth of "sacred books" during "divine service". Later that month both cases were dismissed. In early 1888, another case was brought, and dismissed, over attempts by one faction to expel members of the other faction.
In December 1892, the congregation expelled Rosenberg, charging him with eating a piece of pork
, which is not kosher. To augment his salary of $400 (today $) a year from Beth Jacob, Rosenberg also worked as an agent for a cigar company. While visiting a customer at a bar, he was alleged to have eaten the pork while partaking of some of the free lunch provided there. Rosenberg initially said that while he had drunk a great deal, he had not eaten anything at all, and subsequently stated that he was sure he had not eaten pork, because the bar-keep had sworn in affidavit that there was none in the lunch provided that day. Rosenberg later averred consistently that if he had eaten any pork, it was inadvertently. He also alleged hypocrisy on the part of the members, stating "They are all reformed Jews in private, although orthodox Jews in public."
The rabbi's defenders strongly objected to the decision. His primary supporter, synagogue vice president Louis Jackson, who had broken the story to the press, described the congregation as a "collection of jackasses", with the "chief jackass" being the president Louis Schwartz, who Jackson accused of eating ham himself, and of stealing from the synagogue's charity boxes. Jackson was expelled from the congregation, and subsequently convicted of libel and fined $100 (today $) for making the accusations, while Rosenberg sued the synagogue for his salary. Rosenberg died of pneumonia in April 1893, at the age of 43, his "health and spirits", according to a contemporary New York Times
report, "broken" by the expulsion. At the funeral, Jackson berated the congregation's members, who, he charged, had "hounded, hunted, driven [Rosenberg] to a grave of misery", and allegedly threatened to kill one of them with a stone taken from the newly dug grave. Charges were again brought against Jackson, but this time were dismissed, with the Justice stating "it looks as if it were an even thing all around."
A month later, Beth Jacob hired Abraham Salbaum as rabbi. The following year, the synagogue's two-story frame synagogue building at 326 Keap Street, valued at $2,000 (today $), was struck by lighting and almost completely destroyed. The congregation decided to rebuild at the same location.
at the beginning of the 20th century as the Williamsburg Bridge
was built, providing access to Manhattan
. In January 1904, Beth Jacob merged with Chevra Ansche Sholom, a synagogue that had been founded the year before. The combined congregation took the name Beth Jacob Anshe Sholom. Chevra Ansche Sholom worshiped in a Masonic Temple
, and had a number of assets, including two houses at 184–186 South Third Street valued at $6,500 (today $), with a mortgage of $4,500 (today $). At the time, Beth Jacob's own building was valued at $6,000 (today $), with a mortgage of $2,000 (today $).
Beth Jacob Anshe Sholom exchanged the deeds for houses at 184–186 South Third Street for a property at 274–276 South Third Street in June 1905. It hired architect George F. Pelham
to draw up plans for a new building, instructing him to copy the prominent Congregation Shaaray Tefila building on Manhattan's West 82nd Street, designed by Arnold Brunner
, and known as the "West End Synagogue". Features of the new design included seating for almost 1,000 in the main sanctuary, a Talmud Torah
for Hebrew language
instruction in the basement, electric lighting, and steam heating. Construction was expected to cost $75,000 (today $). Beth Jacob Anshe Sholom erected the building at 274–276 South Third Street, and sold Beth Jacob's building at 326 Keap Street to the North Side Chevre, a new congregation.
Ground was broken in June 1905, the cornerstone
was laid in September, and the new building was dedicated by then-rabbi Dr. H. Veld on September 9, 1906, in time for High Holy Day services to be held there that year. The actual cost of construction was around $60,000 (today $), of which $35,000 (today $) was raised through sale of seats and donations, and the rest via a mortgage. The improved premises attracted many new members.
In February 1907, the congregation created a four-room Talmud Torah
. In September of that year Samuel Rabinowitz was hired as rabbi for a three-year term, renewed in 1910 for another three years. A "junior congregation" was created from the members of the Talmud Torah. They elected, as their first "pupil rabbi", Harry Halpern
, who later served for five decades as rabbi of the East Midwood Jewish Center
.
Rabinowitz resigned in indignation in May 1912, stating the trustees did not live up to the terms of his contract, after Herman Heisman, chairman of the synagogue's board of trustees, hired an assistant rabbi, whose services Rabinowitz objected to. Rabinowitz purchased for $50,000 (today $) a church building at South 5th Street and Marcy Avenue, and started his own synagogue there. His first Saturday services had an attendance of 1,200, a third of whom were his former congregants, and he stated that "his flock" would soon join him.
Rabinowitz was succeeded as rabbi of Beth Jacob Anshe Sholom in December 1912 by Wolf Gold
. Born in Szczecin
, Poland (then Stettin, Germany) in 1889, he was the descendant of at least eight generations of rabbis, and received his own rabbinic ordination in 1906, at age 17. He emigrated to the United States the following year, and served as rabbi of congregations in Chicago, Illinois and Scranton, Pennsylvania
before coming to Williamsburg.
A strong proponent of Religious Zionism
, Gold helped found in New York the first branch of Mizrahi
(the Religious Zionists of America
) in the United States in 1914 (he would subsequently assist in the founding of many of its other branches in North America). That year, the congregation purchased for the growing Talmud Torah the First United Presbyterian Church building at South 1st and Rodney Streets, at a cost of $20,050 (today $). Many classrooms were added in the lower auditorium, and the building was dedicated as the "Talmud Torah of Williamsburg" in December.
In 1917, Gold was one of the founders of Yeshiva Torah Vodaas
, and was its first president. He would serve at Beth Jacob Anshe Sholom until 1919, moving to a pulpit in San Francisco. That year the congregation had 155 member families. Gold would emigrate to Palestine in 1935, and was one of the signatories of the Israeli Declaration of Independence.
Gold was succeeded as rabbi by Solomon Golobowsky. The congregation had decided by 1918 that the Talmud Torah should become independent: during Golobowsky's tenure, in 1921, it demolished the church building housing the school, and built in its place a new building, with 18 classrooms and an auditorium. The school was incorporated as the "Hebrew School of Williamsburg", and title to the building and property was transferred from the synagogue to it in July of that year. The school in turn assumed a mortgage of $15,000 (today $) and additional debts of around $10,700 (today $).
Isaac Bunin succeeded Golobowsky as rabbi in December 1926. Born in Malistovka, Krasnopoli (near Mogilev
, Belarus) in 1882, he had emigrated to the United States in 1923. While practicing as a rabbi in Russia, he issued a responsum
in 1908 that permitted Jews to shoot—on the Sabbath—anarchist communists
who terrorized local Jewish communities, and extorted "contributions" from them. Before coming to Beth Jacob Anshe Sholom he served as rabbi in Trenton, New Jersey
, where he was instrumental in the creation of the re-established Dr. Theodor Herzl's Zion Hebrew School (opened October 1926).
and the Holocaust
, large numbers of Hasidic
and haredi
Jewish refugees immigrated to Williamsburg. The congregation initially had poor relations with these communities, but these later improved with "'part of' the Hasidic community". The synagogue celebrated Bunin's Silver Jubilee
as rabbi in March, 1951. His work Hegyonot Yitzhak was published in 1953.
The old Jewish area of Williamsburg east of Broadway was strongly impacted by the construction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in the 1950s. The congregation's building was expropriated and demolished. It joined with another large Ashkenazi
synagogue in the same situation, and in 1957 the merged congregations constructed the current building at the edge of the "Jewish Triangle", just west of Broadway. In 1965, Chaim A. Pincus was the rabbi.
Joshua Fishman, described by George Kranzler as "a renowned scholar and orator," became the rabbi of the congregation in 1971. He also served from 1982 as head of Torah Umesorah – National Society for Hebrew Day Schools. At the time Fishman became rabbi, as many as 700 people would attend Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom's services.
One of the members in the 1990s and 2000s was Marty Needleman. He was project director for Brooklyn Legal Services, which provided legal services to low-income residents in north and east Brooklyn, and was a member of the executive committees of both the synagogue and of Los Sures, a Williamsburg community-based housing group. Another notable congregant is Steve Cohn
, the Democratic District Leader and lawyer whose father was involved with the synagogue, and who had his Bar Mitzvah there.
Samuel Heilman
wrote in 1996 that Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom was one of four Williamsburg institutions that served to "anchor the community around them", and "in effect geographically engulf and cancel" the ability of prominent local churches to "dominate the neighborhood". By the mid-1990s, however, the synagogue attracted only 300 to 400 generally elderly Ashkenazi men and women for High Holy Day services, most of whom lived in "public high rise projects", and Fishman doubted that Williamsburg's only remaining Orthodox Nusach Ashkenaz
synagogue still holding regular services would survive. By 2010, Shabbat attendance was around two dozen worshipers, and weekday attendance half that.
, Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom was the oldest Orthodox congregation on Long Island
(including Brooklyn and Queens
), and, according to Brooklyn Eagle
journalist Raanan Geberer, "one of the few remnants of the non-Hasidic Jewish community that thrived in Williamsburg until the 1960s". There are no longer any Conservative or Reform synagogues in its neighborhood. Fishman is the synagogue's rabbi, and the president is Morris Schulman.
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
located at 284 Rodney Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Williamsburg is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, bordering Greenpoint to the north, Bedford-Stuyvesant to the south, Bushwick to the east and the East River to the west. The neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community Board 1. The neighborhood is served by the NYPD's 90th ...
, New York. It is the oldest Orthodox congregation on Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
(including Brooklyn and Queens
Queens
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....
), and one of the last remaining non-Hasidic
Hasidic Judaism
Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism, from the Hebrew —Ḥasidut in Sephardi, Chasidus in Ashkenazi, meaning "piety" , is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalisation of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspects of the Jewish faith...
Jewish
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
institutions in Williamsburg.
The congregation was formed in 1869 by German Jews as an Orthodox breakaway from an existing Reform
Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism refers to various beliefs, practices and organizations associated with the Reform Jewish movement in North America, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In general, it maintains that Judaism and Jewish traditions should be modernized and should be compatible with participation in the...
congregation. It constructed its first building on Keap Street in 1870. In 1904 it merged with Chevra Ansche Sholom, and took the name Congregation Beth Jacob Anshe Sholom. The following year it constructed a new building at 274–276 South Third Street, designed by George F. Pelham
George F. Pelham
George Frederick Pelham was an American architect. He worked for 43 years during which he designed numerous apartment buildings and office buildings in New York City. His final building was the Central Hanover Bank and Trust Company Building.Mr. Pelham was also the architect of the Chalfonte Hotel...
.
The congregation's building was expropriated and demolished as a result of the construction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in the 1950s. It combined with another congregation in a similar situation, and, as Congregation Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom, constructed a new building at 284 Rodney Street, just south of Broadway
Broadway (Brooklyn)
Broadway is an avenue in the New York City borough of Brooklyn that extends from the East River in the neighborhood of Williamsburg in a southeasterly direction to East New York for a length of 4.32 miles . It was named for Broadway in Manhattan. The East New York terminus is a complicated...
, in 1957.
Joshua Fishman became rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
in 1971. With changing demographics, attendance at services, which had been 700 in the 1970s, fell to two dozen by 2010.
Early history
The congregation was founded as Beth Jacob in 1869, by more traditional members of an existing ReformReform Judaism (North America)
Reform Judaism is the largest denomination of American Jews today. With an estimated 1.5 million members, it also accounts for the largest number of Jews affiliated with Progressive Judaism worldwide.- Reform Jewish theology :Rabbi W...
German Jewish synagogue, the Keap Street Temple. They objected to the installation and use of a pipe organ
Pipe organ
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...
to accompany Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur , also known as Day of Atonement, is the holiest and most solemn day of the year for the Jews. Its central themes are atonement and repentance. Jews traditionally observe this holy day with a 25-hour period of fasting and intensive prayer, often spending most of the day in synagogue...
services
Jewish services
Jewish prayer are the prayer recitations that form part of the observance of Judaism. These prayers, often with instructions and commentary, are found in the siddur, the traditional Jewish prayer book....
, which was forbidden by halakha
Halakha
Halakha — also transliterated Halocho , or Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions.Judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and ostensibly non-religious life; Jewish...
(Jewish law), and seceded and created their own congregation. The new congregation was formally incorporated on October 1 of that year, and first worshiped in a house. In 1870, Beth Jacob purchased a 23 feet (7 m) by 95 feet (29 m) lot at what is now 326 Keap Street (than Tenth Street) for $150 (today $) in cash and a mortgage of $1,050 (today $), and constructed a building there, at a cost of around $6,000 (today $). Men and women sat separately, and the sanctuary had seating for 164 men on the main floor and 135 women in the gallery. Services were generally held only on Shabbat
Shabbat
Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...
and the Jewish holiday
Jewish holiday
Jewish holidays are days observed by Jews as holy or secular commemorations of important events in Jewish history. In Hebrew, Jewish holidays and festivals, depending on their nature, may be called yom tov or chag or ta'anit...
s. The first spiritual leader was Rabbi Dresser, and he was succeeded by Lewis Lewinski (or Levinsky).
In its early years, the congregation's financial situation was precarious. The building was located ten blocks from where most of the congregants and potential congregants lived (on Grand Street
Grand Street (Brooklyn)
Grand Street and Grand Avenue are the respective names of a street which runs through the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, New York City, United States...
, near the ferry docks), and attendance was low. Even on the High Holy Days
High Holy Days
The High Holidays or High Holy Days, in Judaism, more properly known as the Yamim Noraim , may mean:#strictly, the holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur ;...
, the sanctuary was rarely more than half full. The synagogue employed a rabbi, gabbai
Gabbai
A Gabbai is a person who assists in the running of a synagogue and ensures that the needs are met, for example the Jewish prayer services run smoothly, or an assistant to a rabbi...
, and cantor
Hazzan
A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish cantor, a musician trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer.There are many rules relating to how a cantor should lead services, but the idea of a cantor as a paid professional does not exist in classical rabbinic sources...
, and annual expenses often exceeded the congregation's income (which came primarily from the sale of seats). To remain solvent, the congregation borrowed money against the equity in the building: $2,000 (today $) in 1888, and another $2,000 in 1894.
The congregation was also marked by public controversies and factionalism. In January 1887, during a heated discussion at a congregational business meeting, one member addressed two others with the informal German "du" (rather than the formal "Sie"), which was considered impolite. Despite attempts by then-rabbi Lewinksi to intervene, the two men beat the first, knocked him to the ground, and "trampled upon" him. The two men were subsequently charged with "assault in the third degree".
Lewinski was succeeded that year as rabbi by Hyman Rosenberg, and in October of the same year a new secretary was elected, in a close-fought battle between two factions. When it was time for the former secretary to hand over the financial books, a member, Simon Freudenthal, was alleged to have grabbed them, jumped out a window, and ran away with them. When he returned, he refused to say why he took them, and insisted he would keep them. A warrant was issued for his arrest on the charge of larceny
Larceny
Larceny is a crime involving the wrongful acquisition of the personal property of another person. It was an offence under the common law of England and became an offence in jurisdictions which incorporated the common law of England into their own law. It has been abolished in England and Wales,...
, and he was released on bail. Ten days later the synagogue president, American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
veteran Colonel Solomon Monday, was arrested and charged in turn with libel, for allegedly claiming that Freudenthal stole "sacred books". Monday, in turn, had Freudenthal charged in November with stealing $8 (today $) worth of "sacred books" during "divine service". Later that month both cases were dismissed. In early 1888, another case was brought, and dismissed, over attempts by one faction to expel members of the other faction.
In December 1892, the congregation expelled Rosenberg, charging him with eating a piece of pork
Pork
Pork is the culinary name for meat from the domestic pig , which is eaten in many countries. It is one of the most commonly consumed meats worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BC....
, which is not kosher. To augment his salary of $400 (today $) a year from Beth Jacob, Rosenberg also worked as an agent for a cigar company. While visiting a customer at a bar, he was alleged to have eaten the pork while partaking of some of the free lunch provided there. Rosenberg initially said that while he had drunk a great deal, he had not eaten anything at all, and subsequently stated that he was sure he had not eaten pork, because the bar-keep had sworn in affidavit that there was none in the lunch provided that day. Rosenberg later averred consistently that if he had eaten any pork, it was inadvertently. He also alleged hypocrisy on the part of the members, stating "They are all reformed Jews in private, although orthodox Jews in public."
The rabbi's defenders strongly objected to the decision. His primary supporter, synagogue vice president Louis Jackson, who had broken the story to the press, described the congregation as a "collection of jackasses", with the "chief jackass" being the president Louis Schwartz, who Jackson accused of eating ham himself, and of stealing from the synagogue's charity boxes. Jackson was expelled from the congregation, and subsequently convicted of libel and fined $100 (today $) for making the accusations, while Rosenberg sued the synagogue for his salary. Rosenberg died of pneumonia in April 1893, at the age of 43, his "health and spirits", according to a contemporary New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
report, "broken" by the expulsion. At the funeral, Jackson berated the congregation's members, who, he charged, had "hounded, hunted, driven [Rosenberg] to a grave of misery", and allegedly threatened to kill one of them with a stone taken from the newly dug grave. Charges were again brought against Jackson, but this time were dismissed, with the Justice stating "it looks as if it were an even thing all around."
A month later, Beth Jacob hired Abraham Salbaum as rabbi. The following year, the synagogue's two-story frame synagogue building at 326 Keap Street, valued at $2,000 (today $), was struck by lighting and almost completely destroyed. The congregation decided to rebuild at the same location.
Early 20th century
Many working class German Jews moved to Williamsburg from the Lower East SideLower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
at the beginning of the 20th century as the Williamsburg Bridge
Williamsburg Bridge
The Williamsburg Bridge is a suspension bridge in New York City across the East River connecting the Lower East Side of Manhattan at Delancey Street with the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn at Broadway near the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway...
was built, providing access to Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. In January 1904, Beth Jacob merged with Chevra Ansche Sholom, a synagogue that had been founded the year before. The combined congregation took the name Beth Jacob Anshe Sholom. Chevra Ansche Sholom worshiped in a Masonic Temple
Masonic Temple
Masonic Temple is a term commonly used in Freemasonry with multiple but related meanings. It is used to describe an abstract spiritual goal, the conceptual ritualistic space formed when a Masonic Lodge meets, and the physical rooms and structures in which a Lodge meets...
, and had a number of assets, including two houses at 184–186 South Third Street valued at $6,500 (today $), with a mortgage of $4,500 (today $). At the time, Beth Jacob's own building was valued at $6,000 (today $), with a mortgage of $2,000 (today $).
Beth Jacob Anshe Sholom exchanged the deeds for houses at 184–186 South Third Street for a property at 274–276 South Third Street in June 1905. It hired architect George F. Pelham
George F. Pelham
George Frederick Pelham was an American architect. He worked for 43 years during which he designed numerous apartment buildings and office buildings in New York City. His final building was the Central Hanover Bank and Trust Company Building.Mr. Pelham was also the architect of the Chalfonte Hotel...
to draw up plans for a new building, instructing him to copy the prominent Congregation Shaaray Tefila building on Manhattan's West 82nd Street, designed by Arnold Brunner
Arnold Brunner
Arnold William Brunner was an American architect who was born and died in New York City. Brunner was educated in New York and in Manchester, England. He attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied under William R. Ware. Early in his career, he worked in the architectural...
, and known as the "West End Synagogue". Features of the new design included seating for almost 1,000 in the main sanctuary, a Talmud Torah
Talmud Torah
Talmud Torah schools were created in the Jewish world, both Ashkenazic and Sephardic, as a form of public primary school for boys of modest backgrounds, where they were given an elementary education in Hebrew, the Scriptures , and the Talmud...
for Hebrew language
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
instruction in the basement, electric lighting, and steam heating. Construction was expected to cost $75,000 (today $). Beth Jacob Anshe Sholom erected the building at 274–276 South Third Street, and sold Beth Jacob's building at 326 Keap Street to the North Side Chevre, a new congregation.
Ground was broken in June 1905, the cornerstone
Cornerstone
The cornerstone concept is derived from the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation, important since all other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure.Over time a cornerstone became a ceremonial masonry stone, or...
was laid in September, and the new building was dedicated by then-rabbi Dr. H. Veld on September 9, 1906, in time for High Holy Day services to be held there that year. The actual cost of construction was around $60,000 (today $), of which $35,000 (today $) was raised through sale of seats and donations, and the rest via a mortgage. The improved premises attracted many new members.
In February 1907, the congregation created a four-room Talmud Torah
Talmud Torah
Talmud Torah schools were created in the Jewish world, both Ashkenazic and Sephardic, as a form of public primary school for boys of modest backgrounds, where they were given an elementary education in Hebrew, the Scriptures , and the Talmud...
. In September of that year Samuel Rabinowitz was hired as rabbi for a three-year term, renewed in 1910 for another three years. A "junior congregation" was created from the members of the Talmud Torah. They elected, as their first "pupil rabbi", Harry Halpern
Harry Halpern
Harry Halpern was an American religious and community leader, a powerful orator, a respected religious educator, and a prominent Conservative rabbi who served for almost 49 years as the rabbi of the East Midwood Jewish Center , in Brooklyn, New York.-Life and works:Halpern was born on the Lower...
, who later served for five decades as rabbi of the East Midwood Jewish Center
East Midwood Jewish Center
East Midwood Jewish Center is a Conservative synagogue located at 1625 Ocean Avenue, Midwood, Brooklyn, New York City.Organized in 1924, the congregation's Renaissance revival building typified the large multi-purpose synagogue centers being built at the time, and was from the 1990s until 2010 the...
.
Rabinowitz resigned in indignation in May 1912, stating the trustees did not live up to the terms of his contract, after Herman Heisman, chairman of the synagogue's board of trustees, hired an assistant rabbi, whose services Rabinowitz objected to. Rabinowitz purchased for $50,000 (today $) a church building at South 5th Street and Marcy Avenue, and started his own synagogue there. His first Saturday services had an attendance of 1,200, a third of whom were his former congregants, and he stated that "his flock" would soon join him.
Rabinowitz was succeeded as rabbi of Beth Jacob Anshe Sholom in December 1912 by Wolf Gold
Wolf Gold
Rabbi Wolf Gold was a rabbi, Jewish activist, and one of the signatories of the Israeli declaration of independenceBorn in Stettin, Germany he was a descendant on his father's side from at least eight generations of rabbis. Gold's first teacher was his maternal grandfather, Rabbi Yehoshuah...
. Born in Szczecin
Szczecin
Szczecin , is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. It is the country's seventh-largest city and the largest seaport in Poland on the Baltic Sea. As of June 2009 the population was 406,427....
, Poland (then Stettin, Germany) in 1889, he was the descendant of at least eight generations of rabbis, and received his own rabbinic ordination in 1906, at age 17. He emigrated to the United States the following year, and served as rabbi of congregations in Chicago, Illinois and Scranton, Pennsylvania
Scranton, Pennsylvania
Scranton is a city in the northeastern part of Pennsylvania, United States. It is the county seat of Lackawanna County and the largest principal city in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area. Scranton had a population of 76,089 in 2010, according to the U.S...
before coming to Williamsburg.
A strong proponent of Religious Zionism
Religious Zionism
Religious Zionism is an ideology that combines Zionism and Jewish religious faith...
, Gold helped found in New York the first branch of Mizrahi
Mizrachi (Religious Zionism)
The Mizrachi is the name of the religious Zionist organization founded in 1902 in Vilnius at a world conference of religious Zionists called by Rabbi Yitzchak Yaacov Reines. Bnei Akiva, which was founded in 1929, is the youth movement associated with Mizrachi...
(the Religious Zionists of America
Religious Zionists of America
The Religious Zionists of America is an American based organization that serves as the official body for those, mostly Modern Orthodox Jews who identify with Religious Zionism and support the goals of the general Mizrachi movement in America, Europe and Israel.Most rabbis...
) in the United States in 1914 (he would subsequently assist in the founding of many of its other branches in North America). That year, the congregation purchased for the growing Talmud Torah the First United Presbyterian Church building at South 1st and Rodney Streets, at a cost of $20,050 (today $). Many classrooms were added in the lower auditorium, and the building was dedicated as the "Talmud Torah of Williamsburg" in December.
In 1917, Gold was one of the founders of Yeshiva Torah Vodaas
Yeshiva Torah Vodaas
Yeshiva Torah Vodaas is a yeshiva located in the Kensington neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.- History :...
, and was its first president. He would serve at Beth Jacob Anshe Sholom until 1919, moving to a pulpit in San Francisco. That year the congregation had 155 member families. Gold would emigrate to Palestine in 1935, and was one of the signatories of the Israeli Declaration of Independence.
Gold was succeeded as rabbi by Solomon Golobowsky. The congregation had decided by 1918 that the Talmud Torah should become independent: during Golobowsky's tenure, in 1921, it demolished the church building housing the school, and built in its place a new building, with 18 classrooms and an auditorium. The school was incorporated as the "Hebrew School of Williamsburg", and title to the building and property was transferred from the synagogue to it in July of that year. The school in turn assumed a mortgage of $15,000 (today $) and additional debts of around $10,700 (today $).
Isaac Bunin succeeded Golobowsky as rabbi in December 1926. Born in Malistovka, Krasnopoli (near Mogilev
Mogilev
Mogilev is a city in eastern Belarus, about 76 km from the border with Russia's Smolensk Oblast and 105 km from the border with Russia's Bryansk Oblast. It has more than 367,788 inhabitants...
, Belarus) in 1882, he had emigrated to the United States in 1923. While practicing as a rabbi in Russia, he issued a responsum
Responsa
Responsa comprise a body of written decisions and rulings given by legal scholars in response to questions addressed to them.-In the Roman Empire:Roman law recognised responsa prudentium, i.e...
in 1908 that permitted Jews to shoot—on the Sabbath—anarchist communists
Anarchist communism
Anarchist communism is a theory of anarchism which advocates the abolition of the state, markets, money, private property, and capitalism in favor of common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers' councils with...
who terrorized local Jewish communities, and extorted "contributions" from them. Before coming to Beth Jacob Anshe Sholom he served as rabbi in Trenton, New Jersey
Trenton, New Jersey
Trenton is the capital of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat of Mercer County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Trenton had a population of 84,913...
, where he was instrumental in the creation of the re-established Dr. Theodor Herzl's Zion Hebrew School (opened October 1926).
Post World War II
Following World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
, large numbers of Hasidic
Hasidic Judaism
Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism, from the Hebrew —Ḥasidut in Sephardi, Chasidus in Ashkenazi, meaning "piety" , is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalisation of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspects of the Jewish faith...
and haredi
Haredi Judaism
Haredi or Charedi/Chareidi Judaism is the most conservative form of Orthodox Judaism, often referred to as ultra-Orthodox. A follower of Haredi Judaism is called a Haredi ....
Jewish refugees immigrated to Williamsburg. The congregation initially had poor relations with these communities, but these later improved with "'part of' the Hasidic community". The synagogue celebrated Bunin's Silver Jubilee
Silver Jubilee
A Silver Jubilee is a celebration held to mark a 25th anniversary. The anniversary celebrations can be of a wedding anniversary, ruling anniversary or anything that has completed a 25 year mark...
as rabbi in March, 1951. His work Hegyonot Yitzhak was published in 1953.
The old Jewish area of Williamsburg east of Broadway was strongly impacted by the construction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in the 1950s. The congregation's building was expropriated and demolished. It joined with another large Ashkenazi
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
synagogue in the same situation, and in 1957 the merged congregations constructed the current building at the edge of the "Jewish Triangle", just west of Broadway. In 1965, Chaim A. Pincus was the rabbi.
Joshua Fishman, described by George Kranzler as "a renowned scholar and orator," became the rabbi of the congregation in 1971. He also served from 1982 as head of Torah Umesorah – National Society for Hebrew Day Schools. At the time Fishman became rabbi, as many as 700 people would attend Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom's services.
One of the members in the 1990s and 2000s was Marty Needleman. He was project director for Brooklyn Legal Services, which provided legal services to low-income residents in north and east Brooklyn, and was a member of the executive committees of both the synagogue and of Los Sures, a Williamsburg community-based housing group. Another notable congregant is Steve Cohn
Steve Cohn
Steve Cohn is a lawyer and a Democratic District Leader in Brooklyn, New York. He is Democratic Committeeman in Brooklyn's 50th Assembly District...
, the Democratic District Leader and lawyer whose father was involved with the synagogue, and who had his Bar Mitzvah there.
Samuel Heilman
Samuel Heilman
Samuel Heilman is a professor of Sociology at Queens College of the City University of New York who focuses on social ethnography of contemporary Jewish Orthodox movements.-Personal:...
wrote in 1996 that Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom was one of four Williamsburg institutions that served to "anchor the community around them", and "in effect geographically engulf and cancel" the ability of prominent local churches to "dominate the neighborhood". By the mid-1990s, however, the synagogue attracted only 300 to 400 generally elderly Ashkenazi men and women for High Holy Day services, most of whom lived in "public high rise projects", and Fishman doubted that Williamsburg's only remaining Orthodox Nusach Ashkenaz
Nusach Ashkenaz
Nusach Ashkenaz is a style of Jewish religious service conducted by Ashkenazi Jews, originating from Central and Western Europe.It is primarily a way to order and include prayers, and differs from Nusach Sefard , and still more from the Sephardic rite proper, in the placement and presence of...
synagogue still holding regular services would survive. By 2010, Shabbat attendance was around two dozen worshipers, and weekday attendance half that.
, Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom was the oldest Orthodox congregation on Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
(including Brooklyn and Queens
Queens
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....
), and, according to Brooklyn Eagle
Brooklyn Eagle
The Brooklyn Daily Bulletin began publishing when the original Eagle folded in 1955. In 1996 it merged with a newly revived Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and now publishes a morning paper five days a week under the Brooklyn Daily Eagle name...
journalist Raanan Geberer, "one of the few remnants of the non-Hasidic Jewish community that thrived in Williamsburg until the 1960s". There are no longer any Conservative or Reform synagogues in its neighborhood. Fishman is the synagogue's rabbi, and the president is Morris Schulman.