Монтгомери қаласындағы ортодоксал синагог тарихы

Orthodox synagogue

The synagogue was formed through the 2001 merger of Agudath Israel and Etz Ahayem synagogues.

Agudath Israel was established as an Orthodox synagogue in 1902 by Yiddish speaking Ashkenazi Jews, recent Eastern European immigrants who rejected the Reform practices of Montgomery's established Congregation Kahl Montgomery/Temple Beth Or. After renting quarters for a number of years, the congregation purchased its first permanent building on Monroe Street in 1914, and constructed a new building at McDonough and High Street in 1928. Etz Ahayem was established in 1912 by Ladino speaking Sephardi Jews, particularly from Rhodes. The congregation grew slowly, and completed construction of its first building in 1927. In 1962 the congregation moved to a new building, but by the 1990s it had dwindled, as children of congregants moved away from Montgomery, and the synagogue had difficulty finding rabbis to lead it. Though originally organized as the Orthodox Congregation Kahl Montgomery by German Jews in 1849, during the 1870s Kahl Montgomery had steadily adopted Reform practices. It changed its name to Temple Beth Or in 1874, The more recent Eastern European immigrant members wanted a service in Hebrew that followed Orthodox practice, and decided to organize their own synagogue. and an annual revenue of $500 (today $); that year Temple Beth Or had 188 members and revenues of $9,500 (today $). Reflecting the membership's "growing assimilation", in 1914 Agudath Israel re wrote its constitution in English. which they dedicated in 1928. Alexander Sandor Wiesel, a Chicago native, was rabbi in 1934. He had previously served at Brith Achim Synagogue in Petersburg, Virginia, and would move to House of Israel Synagogue in Calgary, Alberta. Benjamin G. Eisenberg served as rabbi from 1938 until at least 1942. By then membership had dropped to around 60 member families. A southerner (from Greenville, Mississippi), he was "in the 8th generation of a line of rabbis", and had become friends with Martin Luther King Jr., tutoring him in Hebrew, and speaking at his Dexter Avenue Church. In 1956, during National Brotherhood Week Atlas spoke on a panel of clergy at the local WRMA radio station, which also included Michael Caswell, a white Roman Catholic priest from nearby Gunter Air Force Base, Roy Bennett, a black Baptist minister, and black activist Ralph Abernathy; Bennett and Abernathy were subsequently arrested "on an obscure conspiracy charge". However, Atlas wrote a sermon for the following Shabbat which included a prayer for the participants of the boycott. The sermon, as with all others, was to be printed beforehand in the Montgomery Advertiser, and a typesetter there called one of the synagogue's trustees to inform him of the contents. The trustee asked Atlas to modify the sermon, but he refused. When his contract came up for renewal that year, Atlas argued that the matter should be put to a congregational vote. The trustees refused to do so, and voted 27 to 1 not to renew the contract. After Atlas left, the trustees unanimously voted that the next rabbi would have to sign an agreement not to discuss "Negroes" or segregation. and, in 1957, moved to its current location at 3525 Cloverdale Road. In 1959, however, it hired as rabbi Aaron Borow, who had just graduated from the Modern Orthodox Yeshiva University. While Borow did not undo the synagogue's mixed seating, he did turn off the synagogue's microphone, and turn the bimah so that the cantor faced the front of the synagogue (rather than the congregation), in the Orthodox style. Borow was succeeded by Irving Rubin, also a graduate of Yeshiva University, who served from 1965 to 1968, before moving to Kesher Israel Synagogue in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Raphael Gold was rabbi from the mid 1970s to the early 1980s. David Arzouane, another a graduate of Yeshiva University, joined Agudath Israel in 1986 as director of the Hebrew education program, a position he has held since then. Upon receiving his ordination from the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTSA) in 1988, Aaron Krupnick joined Agudath Israel as rabbi. He served until 1994. Agudath Israel hired Cynthia Culpeper as rabbi in 1995. Culpeper, a convert from Catholicism and former nurse, had been posted at Agudath Israel as a rabbinical intern, and was hired there full time upon graduation from the JTSA, the first Conservative woman rabbi in Alabama. However, the following year she revealed that she had AIDS, the result of an accidental needle prick while working as a nurse. She was the first pulpit rabbi to announce being diagnosed with AIDS, which she did early in 1996. Shalom Plotkin joined Agudath Israel as rabbi in 2000. A graduate of the University of Maryland, and ordained by the JTSA in 1998, he had been an "assistant rabbi at a synagogue in Marietta, Georgia" before coming to Agudath Israel. A chaplain in the United States Navy Reserve, he had been stationed with the U. S. Navy in the Adriatic Sea in 1995, during the Bosnian War. During his tenure at Agudath Israel, he remained in the reserve.

Aaron Aronov, former president of Agudath Israel, was inducted into the Alabama Academy of Honor in 1988. Former Secretary of State, Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor and Governor of Alabama Don Siegelman and his family were also members of Agudath Israel. Though Siegelman is Catholic, his wife Lori—who grew up in Birmingham, Alabama—and two children are Jewish. His daughter Dana celebrated her Bat Mitzvah at the synagogue in February 1998.

Ralph Nace Cohen, a Sephardi Jew from Rhodes, settled in Montgomery in 1906, sponsored by a Greek Orthodox friend. in 1918, but it was not until 1927 that they completed construction of a building there. At the time the congregation comprised 27 families. for the previous eight years he had been the rabbi of Congregation Beth Shalom in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey. Listfield led protests by the congregation against the posthumous induction into the Alabama Military Hall of Honor of prominent United States Navy officer, frequent political candidate, and outspoken antisemite John G. Crommelin. In 2007, Scott Kramer became the congregation's rabbi, his first rabbinic post. A native of Baltimore, Kramer had a Master's degree in physics from the University of Utah, and for over two decades had worked as a software engineer. He began studying at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University in 2002, and was ordained there in 2007. as of 2015, Kramer was Agudath Israel Etz Ahayem's rabbi