Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes

Synagogue in New York City

Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes (בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל אַנְשֵׁי אֱמֶת), more commonly known as the Kane Street Synagogue, is an egalitarian Conservative synagogue at 236 Kane Street in the Cobble Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York City, New York, United States. It is the oldest continuously operating synagogue in Brooklyn. and in March that year Hiring the Reverend M. Gershon as cantor (the person who leads the prayers), they first met in various homes, then rented space at 155 Atlantic Street, now Atlantic Avenue. Gershon's appointment was controversial; after a background check, the board decided by a 10–9 vote on April 6, 1856, that he had never held the position of cantor in any other congregation, and was therefore not "sufficiently acquainted with the actual requirements to fill said office", and was furthermore not "a competent reader enough to read the Sepher Torah". According to synagogue legend, the founders had grown tired of rowing across the East River each Friday to celebrate Shabbat in Manhattan. Carol Levin, however, writes that a ferry service from Whitehall Street in Manhattan to South Ferry, Brooklyn (at the foot of Atlantic Street) had existed since 1836 (see South Ferry (ferry)), that the Atlantic Street synagogue's location, so close to the ferry terminus, "must have seemed convenient to many", and that "[f]erry service was fast, frequent and inexpensive  In the year 1869 there were almost 52 million passengers." Thus, in her view, the story of the founders growing tired of rowing across the East River is a "folk tale".

In the congregation's early years, tensions existed between traditionalists and reformers, and in 1861, 41 of the latter left Baith Israel to form the Congregation Beth Elohim, a Reform synagogue. The synagogue, which came to be known as the Boerum Schule, created a Sunday school soon afterwards, and at the time, an innovation. Though many reformers had left the congregation, several reforms in the service were nonetheless introduced: the congregation abolished most piyyutim and the Priestly Blessing, and, in 1873, led by the Reverend Dr. Tinter.

In 1876, the congregation voted by a margin of over two to one to re orient the synagogue pews in the manner of Christian churches, and introduce mixed seating. However, nothing was done about this until 1879, when the renovations were carried out: the front pews were removed, the side pews extended to the walls, and the vestibule moved outside the sanctuary. Led by rabbi Dr. E. M. Myers, the synagogue was re dedicated on September 7. In April 1883, Baith Israel, Beth Elohim, and Temple Israel, Brooklyn's three leading synagogues, tried to merge; Beth Elohim and Temple Israel had both been formed in the 1860s by dissenters from Baith Israel. This was the third such attempt; the previous two had failed when the members could not agree on synagogue ritual. The combined congregation, which would purchase new premises, would have 150 members (only heads of households were considered members at that time). Members would be refunded half the purchase price of the pews in their existing buildings. The rabbis of Beth Elohim and Temple Israel were to split the offices of rabbi and cantor: Baith Israel, at the time, had no rabbi. and a celebration of the 100th birthday of Sir Moses Montefiore. Baith Israel hired Marcus Friedlander as rabbi in 1887. Friedlander served until 1893, when he resigned to take a more lucrative position in California at the First Hebrew Congregation of Oakland. After Friedlander left, his name was, for reasons unknown, deleted from the synagogue histories, and the financial records and minute books dating from his tenure were removed from Baith Israel's archives. Though the synagogue had undertaken innovations in some areas of Jewish law, it still insisted on strict adherence in others. In 1878 Tinter was dismissed for officiating at the marriage of a Jewish woman and Christian man, and that year the board forced the resignation of a Mr. J. Folkart, for transgressing the laws of Yom Kippur.

By 1904, membership had fallen to 30, In 1905, they hired Israel Goldfarb, a 1902 graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary, his first and only pulpit. The following year Goldfarb was appointed rabbi, along with an adjacent school building and a connecting two story arcade. Israel Goldfarb also served as Professor of Liturgical Music at the Jewish Theological Seminary from 1920 to 1944, and in 1949 founded the School of Sacred Music at Hebrew Union College. By 1907–1908 the congregation had grown to 85 member families. The Talmud Torah, which held classes four days a week, had three teachers and 75 students.

In 2002 Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes received a $1 million grant for building renovations from Lillian Goldman, just weeks before her death; she had previously donated $20 million for the reconstruction and expansion of Yale Law School's library, and $5 million to Manhattan's 92nd Street Y for a family center there. After raising over $2 million more, in 2003 the congregation began re building the three story school/community center from the ground up, leaving only the historic facade. In 2004 the building was re opened as the "Sol and Lillian Goldman Education Center", and a day time pre school launched. Nearly 300 households were members by 2006, The grant was part of a million dollar capital campaign that the membership intended to carry out in 2008, as the synagogue building still required extensive repairs: the roof leaked, causing interior damage, and (along with the gutters) needed to be replaced; interior columns were taped to prevent plaster from falling off them; the sanctuary doors needed to be replaced; and the stained glass windows needed to be removed, the metal holding them repaired, and their wooden framing replaced. In 2008, the Synagogue filed documents with the New York Department of State, and was approved to officially use the name "Kane Street Synagogue," which had been its commonly used name for several decades at that point. The congregation had been supportive of the LGBTQ+ community since at least the early 1990s, and following the late 2006 decision by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards to allow same sex commitment ceremonies, in 2007 Kane Street Synagogue voted to follow suit. The congregation was led by now Rabbi Emeritus, Samuel H. Weintraub from 1996 to 2021. He was succeeded by Interim Senior Rabbi Paul. F. Resnick. Rabbi Michelle Dardashti was elected as head rabbi by the congregation in March 2022, and officially assumed her role on August 1 of that year. Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes continues to be the oldest continuously operating synagogue in Brooklyn.