The Eldridge Street Synagogue was built
in 1886-87 as a house of worship for K'hal Adath Jeshurun, a congregation of immigrants
from Russia, Rumania and Poland. The congregation had been founded in the 1850s
and was the very first Russian Jewish congregation in America.
Like
so many other Jewish immigrants, the congregation first worshipped in tenements,
storefronts and former churches abandoned by previous settlers on the Lower East
Side. Before building the Eldridge Street Synagogue, these congregants convened
in an attic on 83 Bayard Street, calling themselves Beth Hamedrash (House of Study).
As the congregation grew, they moved to the first floor of a house on the corner
of Canal and Elm, beneath a carpenter's shop, paying $25 a month in rent. They
soon outgrew these quarters and moved once again, in May 1853, to a former courthouse
on the corner of Centre and Pearl Streets where they adopted the name "The
Trustees of the Congregation Beth Hamedrash." Rabbi Abraham Joseph Ash, who
had heretofore served without a salary, now began to receive $2 a week.
The
congregation's penultimate home, beginning in May 1856, was the Old Welsh Chapel
at 78 Allen Street, between Broome and Grand. This move reflected a broad pattern
of population growth and migration further uptown and east from Chatham Square,
which had been a Jewish community since the 1820s, first populated by Sephardic
Jews of Anglo-Dutch descent, then by German Jews and later, in increasing numbers,
Jews from Russia and Poland.
In 1859, following a dispute
with the president of the congregation, Rabbi Ash severed ties with Beth Hamedrash
in 1859 and formed a rival congregation, Beth Hamedrash Hagadol (Great House of
Study). In 1885, this group occupied the former Baptist Church at 60 Norfolk Street,
where it continues to worship to the present day.
The schism
cast the original congregation into financial straits, and in 1884-86 they merged
with Congregation Hoche Josher Wizaner (Those Who Walk in Righteousness). Records
of their 1886 petition to the New York Supreme Court to sell their property on
Allen Street (which had been transformed from a quiet residential street at mid-century
to a clamorous and dense thoroughfare hastened by the construction of tenement
houses and the nearby elevated railway) indicate that, following the merger, the
congregation sought to build a "larger and more commodious place of worship
on Eldridge Street."
The congregation found three lots, from 12-16
Eldridge Street. In September 1887, the congregation, now calling itself Kahal
Adath Jeshurun, moved to its new home.
Although the founding
congregation was exclusively Russian, the membership soon became more heterogeneous,
with members from all the countries, towns and cities of Eastern Europe. Through
the decades, the minute books of the congregation reveal signs of accelerating
Americanization and modern outlooks. However, well into the 1950s, the language
of the minutes continued to be Yiddish, and liturgical practices and minhag (custom)
of the current congregation remain Orthodox and traditional.
This
congregational history, compiled by ESP intern Bradley Bernstein, is drawn from
information in the congregation's minute books, the Eldridge Street Project's
oral history project, and research conducted by the American History Workshop.
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Congregation
History