East Midwood Jewish Center is a vibrant, egalitarian, Conservative community in the heart of Brooklyn. Since 1924, we have been a house of worship, a place for Judaic discovery and action, and a haven for learners, seekers, and questioners. Welcoming to all, we are host to a range of Jewish voices. Our community is made up of married and single people, with and without children, straight and LGBTQ, interfaith families, and other families who are exploring their Jewish path.
The Story of East Midwood Jewish Center
On the National Register of Historic Places / Founded 1924
East Midwood Jewish Center was founded in 1924, when its section of Flatbush was largely an area of widely spaced one-family homes and extensive stretches of open fields. Brooklyn College had not come into being yet, and Bedford Avenue was still unpaved. East Midwood was “out in the country.” Jewish families who had begun to settle here were deeply concerned that there was no Hebrew school nearby.
Our Center was created out of the commitment of a small group of individuals who came together to establish an institution to provide for the Jewish education, spiritual, and social needs of the area in which they lived. They realized that there is no future in Judaism without strengthening the present.
The cornerstone of the building was laid on June 13, 1926. In the autumn of that year the building was fully enclosed and High Holy Day services were held within the building, officiated by Rabbi Reuben Kaufman, our Center’s First Rabbi, and Cantor Jacob Schraeter.
The building was completed in 1929, at a cost of about one million dollars, and remains one of the most beautiful synagogues in the City of New York.
Rabbi Harry Halpern accepted the call to serve as our Rabbi in February 1929. This mutual association of Rabbi and Center proved a most fruitful one for many, many years.
During the Great Depression financial trouble assailed the growing Center. As times improved, membership began to climb slowly. In 1934 there were 300 members. Ten years later the membership rose to 1100. Adult classes became part of the Center’s educational program, with courses offered in Hebrew, religious customs and ceremonies, the Bible and Zionism.
During World War II, the men and women of the Center participated actively in war efforts and drives, including the sale of millions of dollars worth of War Bonds. Many members contributed to the Blood Banks, and women volunteered to serve with the Jewish Welfare Board, Red Cross and U.S.O. Our boys served in all branches of the country’s military forces. Some made the supreme sacrifice.
In November 1950, the new school building was dedicated for the use of the Talmud Torah and Youth Activities. Enrollment reached a peak of close to 1000 students in the early 1950.
We established the East Midwood Hebrew Day School to be conducted in accordance with conservative ideology. The school, which began with only three grades, now has a full eight year program where both Hebrew and secular subjects are taught. Additionally, we are proud of our congregational school – Room J, which has been growing since 2007.
In 2006, a gala celebration at East Midwood Jewish Center marked its listing on the National and New York State Registers of Historic Places, which recognize it as an outstanding representative of early twentieth century synagogue design and for its significant role in the development of the New York Jewish community, American democracy, and cultural pluralism.
East Midwood Jewish Center’s task today, as it was in 1924, is to transmit to new generations and the public at large the relevance and beauty of our religious traditions, and the Jewish emphasis on education, social justice, and our mutual responsibilities to each other. In 2016, we are proud to be participating in the USCJ Ruderman Inclusion Action Community, sponsored by USCJ in partnership with the Ruderman Family Foundation.
Park East Synagogue is dedicated to providing the opportunity for spiritual growth, Jewish education and spiritual comfort for individuals, families, and our community.
Park East Synagogue is inclusive of all people seeking a meaningful Jewish life, regardless of degree of observance, knowledge of Jewish tradition, age, or affiliation.
Park East Synagogue is committed to providing inspiring Jewish and general studies education to children and to adults; its Religious School, Early Childhood, and Day School with its emphasis on cultivating a Jewish life rich in tradition and unrivalled in general studies has been, and continues to be, a source of character and vitality for its congregation.
The synagogue’s influence, strength and dynamism in the community derive from the members of our congregation. We value and honor the role our congregants fulfill in defining and shaping our future and that of the Jewish community, in New York City and beyond.
Kehila Kedosha Janina (the Holy Community of Janina) is the only Romaniote synagogue in the Western Hemisphere. Romaniote Jews are a unique community of Jewish people whose history in Greece dates back over two thousand three hundred years to the time of Alexander the Great. The Romaniotes are historically distinct from the Sephardim, who settled in Greece after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.
Our congregation was first organized in New York in 1906 by Greek-speaking Romaniote Jews from the city of Ioannina in Northwestern Greece. In the early twentieth century there were hundreds of other synagogues on the Lower East Side that served Ashkenazi Yiddish-speaking Jews or Sephardic Spanish-speaking Jews. Needing a place of their own where they could preserve their unique traditions, customs, liturgy, and language, property was purchased at 280 Broome Street and the congregation opened its doors to worship at its current location in 1927.
For the past 90 years, KKJ has served the Romaniote community on the Lower East Side and after the closing of nearby Sephardic synagogues, many of the remaining neighborhood Sephardim. In 1997, a Museum was created in the women’s gallery to tell the story of this distinct community to a world that knew so little about them. Today, KKJ is proud to be one of only a handful of active synagogues that remain on the Lower East Side.
The synagogue is a designated New York City landmark and continues to hold services every Shabbat as well as all Jewish holidays. In addition, it houses a museum about Greek Jewry that is open to the public every Sunday, as well as by appointment. The museum serves as a repository for Romaniote and Sephardic Greek Jewish history, both in Greece and on the Lower East Side, and hosts many educational events including lectures, book signings, movie screenings, and concerts.
In 1964, in the living room of an apartment in Lincoln Towers, a part-time rabbi from Yeshiva University named Steven Riskin took the budding Lincoln Square Conservative Synagogue by storm. His originality, charm and boundless energy captivated members and moved them to a more traditionally observant Judaism, in turn sparking a growing Jewish renaissance on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
Before long, a new synagogue-in-theround made its debut at 200 Amsterdam Avenue, and the excitement at the renamed Lincoln Square Synagogue brought hundreds of young single professionals to the neighborhood, creating a vibrant scene for mixing and matching. Young families were also drawn to LSS, attracted by the dazzling teachings of Rabbi Riskin, assisted by Rabbi Herschel Cohen z”l and Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald, and the gorgeous melodies of Cantor Sherwood Goffin. “The New Orthodox” they called it on the cover of New York Magazine. Who knew? But as members struggled to navigate between the laws of Jewish tradition and the secular values of the surrounding society, Lincoln Square Synagogue began to see its destiny.
Just down the street from the temples of high culture at Lincoln Center, Lincoln Square Synagogue quickly established itself as a temple of an innovative kind, showcasing the classical and the contemporary, history and modernity. With joy and pride, the challenges of present-day living were brought into harmony with the ancient traditions passed down through the generations. The sacred liturgical texts of tefillah were infused with a new vitality as haunting, time-honored melodies shared the stage with the music of Shlomo Carlebach and The Rabbi’s Sons. The thirst for wisdom was quenched with the scholarship of Rashi and Rambam blended with the insights of 20th-century thinkers like Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook and Rabbi Joseph Dov HaLevi Soloveitchik. Everything old was new again.
What emerged was a synagogue with its own, unique, invigorating rhythm: home to meaningful and enthusiastic worship, to be sure, but also a place to establish lifelong friendships, build businesses and organizations, find soul mates and nourish the next generation through education and religious instruction. Thousands of Jews of all ages and backgrounds had come together to create a true makom kadosh, providing support for each other in times of sorrow and sharing joy in times of simcha. LSS was now a unified community whose commitment to Judaism and love of humankind extended beyond self and family to the world at large. You could walk in off the street for the first time, as so many did, and feel you’d been here before.
As the years flew by, the stunning success of Lincoln Square Synagogue brought with it newfound responsibility: to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse membership, an ever-expanding neighborhood and a 21st-century world. New solutions for new realities were required that would acknowledge the changing landscape, while staying true to the synagogue’s core principles and personality. Recognizing the difficulties faced by those forced to care for their children and their parents at the same time, and those older members in need of help, LSS became the first local Orthodox synagogue to add a part-time social worker to its core staff, guiding those needing support and companionship through the complicated maze of social service programs.
Identifying a resurgent thirst for Torah study on an individual, one-on-one level, LSS members founded the first full-time Modern Orthodox/Religious Zionist Kollel in the New York metropolitan area, offering the learned and the uninitiated new and exciting educational opportunities that reflected a love of Torah as well as eretz yisrael and am yisrael – the land and the nation of Israel.
And always mindful of the needs of the greater Jewish community, LSS members created the Lea Segre Tomchei Shabbos Fund providing free meals to those recovering from illness and childbirth or sitting shiva, as well as the Louis Lazar Benevolent Fund providing free religious articles like siddurim, mezuzot, and tefillin to those in need. All of this and weekly Bikur Cholim visits to Roosevelt Hospital every Shabbat afternoon, annual clothing drives, and a dedicated Chesed Fund that supports a variety of charitable causes in New York and across the country. As our sages teach, “olam chesed yibaneh” – acts of kindness build the world – and Lincoln Square Synagogue always does its part.
In 2013, LSS continued the next phase of its history and moved 100 yards south to 180 Amsterdam Avenue.
About Manhattan Sephardic Congregation
Originating in 1990 as a dwelling for a few wandering and devout-seeking congregants, MSC has grown to become a full-service venue for Sephardic worship and learning. With an array of adult education classes, daily services (morning and evening), as well as Shabbat and Holidays, visiting lectures, singles events, children’s programs and other exciting activities, MSC offers a warm, inviting, spirited communal outlet for all Jewish people.
MSC has hosted prominent dignitaries and personalities as well as world renown rabbis: Among them, Chief Sephardic Rabbis of Israel, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu and Rabbi Bakshi Doron, Chief Rabbi of France, Rabbi Yosef Sitruk, famed Kabbalist Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri, Rabbi Shalom Messas, ZT”L, Former Foreign Minister of Israel, Mr. David Levy and many other MKs and dignitaries from Israel, Morocco, France and the United States.
Throughout the millennia, our Jewish brethren have made great contributions and sacrifices for the preservation of our rich heritage so that their children and future generations would embrace and safeguard our precious history, practices and unique role in this world. We invite members and non-members alike to perform what is perhaps one of the most significant Mitzvot of all, to be founders and partners in this entity that is dedicated to the perpetuation of sephardic Jewish ideals, legacies that have withstood the test of time. We invite you to take full advantage of this joyful and exciting opportunity, to invest in our proud tradition.
Welcome to Congregation Shearith Israel, America’s first Jewish congregation, founded in 1654 by 23 Jews of Spanish and Portuguese descent. Today, Jews of all backgrounds make up our welcoming, traditional community. Explore this site, and then visit the synagogue to experience the beauty and vitality of this Jewish and American treasure.
Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in the City of New York, was founded in 1654, the first Jewish congregation to be established in North America. Its founders were twenty-three Jews, mostly of Spanish and Portuguese origin, who had been living in Recife, Brazil. When the Portuguese defeated the Dutch for control of Recife, and brought with them the Inquisition, the Jews of that area left. Some returned to Amsterdam, where they had originated. Others went to places in the Caribbean such as St. Thomas, Jamaica, Surinam and Curacao, where they founded sister Sephardic congregations. One group of twenty-three Jews, after a series of unexpected events, landed in New Amsterdam. They were not welcomed by Governor Peter Stuyvesant, who did not wish to permit Jews to settle there. However, these pioneers fought for their rights and won permission to remain. During colonial days, the Jewish community was relatively small.
Even from its earliest days, Shearith Israel had Sephardic and Ashkenazi members. Although the synagogue service follows the custom of Spanish and Portuguese Jews, the membership is diverse, and at present is composed of both Sephardim and Ashkenazim who work together in harmony for the well-being of the Congregation and community.
Until the year 1730, the Congregation met in rented quarters. In 1730, Shearith Israel consecrated its first synagogue building on Mill Street, now known as South William Street. Many of the furnishings of that building are preserved in our Little Synagogue.
Shearith Israel was the only Jewish Congregation in New York City from 1654 until 1825. During that entire span of history, all of the Jews of New York belonged to this Congregation, which provided for all the needs of the Jewish Community, from birth to death. It offered education in both religious and general subjects, provided kosher meat and Passover provisions, and performed a wide variety of charitable and other functions for the Jewish people.
As the Jewish community rapidly grew during the latter 19th and early 20th centuries, Shearith Israel and its members were involved in important communal enterprises. The Sisterhood operated settlement houses on the Lower East Side, to provide for the needs of the newly arriving Sephardic immigrants. Shearith Israel and its members were actively involved in the New York Kehillah movement, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, United Jewish Appeal and other communal charity societies.
With the establishment of a public school system in New York, Shearith Israel operated a religious school for children, endowed in 1802 by a bequest from Meyer Polonies. This school—still bearing the Polonies name—continues to provide supplementary Jewish education to children of the community to this day.
Shearith Israel’s Rabbi Dr. Henry Pereira Mendes—who served the Congregation from 1877 until his death is 1937—was founder and first President of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. Dr. Mendes, together with Rabbi Sabato Morais of Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, were co-founders of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, which they envisioned as a place to train American Orthodox rabbis. Dr. Mendes was involved in the founding of the New York Board of Jewish Ministers (now known as the New York Board of Rabbis), the Lexington School for the Deaf, and Montefiore Hospital.
Shearith Israel’s Rabbi Dr. David de Sola Pool—who served Shearith Israel for the period spanning 1907 until his death in 1970—was actively involved in work on behalf of newly arriving Sephardic immigrants during the first decades of the 20th century. In 1928, he founded the Union of Sephardic Congregations, under whose auspices he prepared and published Sephardic prayer books with his own elegant English translation. Dr. Pool and his wife Tamar were leaders in the Young Judea Youth Movement of Hadassah. Dr. Pool was an important figure in the Joint Distribution Committee, the Jewish Welfare Board, the New York Board of Rabbis, the American Jewish Historical Society and more. He served as editor and translator of the Ashkenazic prayer book published by the Rabbinical Council of America.
Members of Shearith Israel were actively involved in the founding of such institutions as the New York Stock Exchange, the Mt. Sinai Hospital (originally named Jews’ Hospital), the 92nd Street Y, the American Sephardi Federation, Sephardic House, and the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals. They have been leaders on the Boards of Yeshiva University, the American Jewish Committee, the New-York Historical Society, the Metropolitan Opera, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and so many other educational, philanthropic and cultural institutions.
History
Founded in 1917, The Jewish Center has served as one of Modern Orthodoxy’s flagship institutions for nearly a century. For dignitaries, statesmen, scholars and theologians, The Jewish Center is the primary destination for anyone interested in addressing New York’s Modern Orthodox Jewish Community.
The Jewish Center is a vibrant and dynamic synagogue and social center located in the heart of Manhattan’s pulsating Upper West Side. A flagship for Modern Orthodoxy in New York City, The Jewish Center offers a full compliment of classes, lecture series, social programming for all ages and stages of life, along with a full schedule of weekly and Shabbat services. Whether you are a current member, live in the area, or are planning to visit the West Side, we invite you to explore the site and find out what we have to offer. See you in The Center!
The Bayit (home in Hebrew) is more than just a synagogue. Please join us and find your way to connect through Tefillah, Torah Study, Chessed, Youth Activities, Inclusion Programs, Israel Advocacy and more.
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Sons of Israel is a Modern Orthodox Jewish synagogue in Astoria/Long Island City, Queens. We are located at 3321 Crescent Street.
Shabbat services begin at sundown on Friday evening and continue at 9:00 Saturday morning.
The Edmond J. Safra Synagogue
The name “Edmond J. Safra” is synonymous with philanthropy and benevolence. A Lebanese-born Jew who rose to prominence in the banking industry, Mr. Safra supported a remarkable diversity of institutions and charities during his lifetime. While his legacy of giving affected Jewish communities worldwide, his generosity may have had its greatest impact on the various Sephardic Jewish communities in the United States and abroad. An example of how Mr. Safra’s policy of supporting new Jewish institutions continues even after his untimely death can be found in the Edmond J. Safra Synagogue.
During his lifetime, Mr. Safra was often in New York City and spent many Shabbatoth in Manhattan. Noting the absence of a formal synagogue and communal center for the Sephardim of the Upper East Side of Manhattan, Mr. Safra expressed a desire to build a central house of worship in the area. As was his practice, he undertook to move this idea from a vision to a reality. Through the dedication and efforts of his wife, Mrs. Lily Safra, and a team of skilled artisans, the synagogue was completed in December 2002. Dignitaries including the Chief Rabbi of Israel and Mayor Michael Bloomberg attended an official inauguration of the building. Praise for the edifice was exceeded only by praise for the man who foresaw it and his wife who completed it.
Since opening its doors in March, 2003, the Edmond J. Safra Synagogue has become the communal center that its namesake imagined it would. Under the spiritual guidance of Rabbi Elie Abadie, the synagogue offers regular religious services including daily minyanim, a bi-weekly Bet Midrash program, liturgy studies and daily tehilim readings. Moreover, the synagogue has become a prominent social, cultural and educational center having hosted conferences and lectures, parenting and cooking classes, singles’ events, children’s programs and a variety of cultural and educational events.
The Edmond J. Safra Synagogue is well-located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan at 11 East 63rd Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues and regularly hosts guests from around the world. The congregation is comprised of many families from a medley of Middle Eastern backgrounds and it is prepared to welcome all those interested in worshipping with this new, vibrant Jewish community.
Welcome
Young Israel Ohab Zedek of North Riverdale/Yonkers is a warm and welcoming community synagogue located in Riverdale. YIOZ aspires to be the religious, intellectual and spiritual home for each of its members. In the last several years, YIOZ has welcomed an influx of young families who together with the community’s pioneers have created a unique shul, renowned for its warmth and the diversity of its membership. This is an exciting time to join the YIOZ community. New programming for youth, additional minyanim for tefillah, more classes and shiurim for adults, expanded opportunities for chesed, advocacy for Israel and social action, all ensure that each member of YIOZ contributes to, and feels a part of, this growing and vibrant kehillah.
For more information please email us at yiozshul@gmail.com
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