Congregation Beth Elohim

Reform synagogue in Brooklyn, New York

Beth Elohim voted to retire Brandenstein in 1882, an action which created some controversy both within the congregation, and among other Brooklyn synagogues. Younger members of the congregation found no specific fault with Brandenstein, but wanted "a change", and succeeded in dismissing him and electing an entirely new board of officers. The final vote was 29 in favor, 21 against, out of a total membership of 53 or 54 (only the male heads of households were counted as members during this era). Solomon Mosche

In April 1883, Baith Israel, Beth Elohim, and Temple Israel, Brooklyn's three leading synagogues, attempted an amalgamation. 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; members would be refunded half the purchase price of the pews in their existing buildings. Mosche and the rabbi of Temple Israel were to split the offices of rabbi and cantor: Baith Israel, at the time, had no rabbi. Membership at that time still hovered around 50. Despite his illness, Mosche lived until age 75, dying on November 3, 1911. Sparger was Hungarian by birth, a graduate of the Prince Rudolph University of Vienna, and, according to a contemporary New York Times article, "belong[ed] to the extreme liberal school of Hebrew theology". He appealed to younger congregants, and, under his direction, the synagogue experienced a large increase in attendance. as a result of Sparger's innovations Beth Elohim outgrew its Pearl Street building, and a new one was sought. In 1891, Temple Emanu El in Manhattan offered Sparger a salary larger than Beth Elohim could match, and he moved there. Beth Elohim subsequently split the offices of cantor and rabbi, hiring G.

By the time of Taubenhaus's hiring, Beth Elohim was, according to the Brooklyn Eagle, "recognized as the leading Hebrew synagogue of Brooklyn". The views of the congregation regarding kashrut (the Jewish dietary laws) were by then quite liberal; in 1892, when Hyman Rosenberg was expelled as rabbi of Brooklyn's Beth Jacob synagogue for eating ham, Taubenhaus stated that he did not believe his congregation would expel him for doing the same. In 1895, Samuel Radnitz succeeded Weisskopf as cantor, a role he filled until his death in 1944. Taubenhaus left the congregation in 1901, and the following year Alexander Lyons was hired as the congregation's first American born rabbi. Lyons went on to serve the congregation for 37 years, until his death in 1939 at the age of 71. In 1907, the women's auxiliary was founded; until then, though seating was mixed, women had little say in the running of the synagogue.

In 1908, the congregation purchased a 100 feet (30 m) by 112 feet (34 m) lot on the northeast corner of Garfield Place and Eighth Avenue. Plans were made to erect a new synagogue building there with a sanctuary seating 1,500 people, at an anticipated cost of $100,000 (today $). The structure was designed and built by the Manhattan architectural firm of Simon Eisendrath and B. Horowitz (or Horwitz). and completed in 1910. Designed in the Classical Revival style, of "austere neo Classical grandeur" had five sides, representing the five books of Moses, and was capped by a saucer dome. The entrance faced the corner of Garfield and Eighth, and carved in stone over it was the Biblical verse fragment "MINE HOUSE SHALL BE AN HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL PEOPLE" (Isaiah 56:7 (HE)). The basement held classrooms, an auditorium, and administrative offices, and behind the Torah ark was a combination Rabbi's study/Board meeting room. 1909 was also the year Judah Leon Magnes proposed and founded his Kehilla, a "comprehensive communal organization for the Jews of New York", which operated until 1922. Lyons opposed its creation, arguing that Jews in New York were too diverse to co exist in one organization with a single set of standards, that Jews should not organize as Jews for anything except purely religious purposes, and that in any event Reform Judaism was the future and Orthodox Judaism would not survive. As Lyons put it,
To me Reform Judaism is an irresistible conviction. I believe it to be the religion of the Jewish future, while I regard orthodoxy as a survival that may have a galvanized life now and then, but on the whole is doomed. By 1919, Beth Elohim had 133 member families. The congregational school, which held classes once a week, had 305 students and 16 teachers. Negotiations to merge with Union Temple (the successor to Temple Israel) were started in 1925. A confirmation vote eventually passed, and the impending merger was announced in the Brooklyn Eagle. However, younger congregants feared a loss of identity, and forced a withdrawal. Instead, the congregation raised funds for a second building, The doorway and balcony at the east end of the building had "a distinctly Moorish flavor, featuring symbolic ornament: the Star of David, the Menorah, and the Lion of Judah." The names of major figures from the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) were inscribed on the Garfield Place facade, and the Biblical verses "SHOW ME THY WAYS O LORD TEACH ME THY PATHS GUIDE ME" (Psalms 25:4–5 (HE)) on the Eighth Avenue facade. The building was also decorated with bas reliefs of Jonah being swallowed by a great fish and Babylonian charioteers. It housed a 125 seat chapel, a large ballroom, social halls, class rooms for the religious school, meeting rooms, administrative offices, a library, handball courts, a gymnasium, and a swimming pool. Lyons took on a number of causes in the 1910s and 1920s. He worked with Bishop David Greer and Rabbi Stephen Wise to expose conditions in New York's tenements, dissociated himself from Tammany Hall candidates, tried to secure a re trial for Leo Frank, and opposed some of the views of Samuel Gompers. In 1912, Lyons was a founding member of the Eastern Council of Reform Rabbis, an organization of Reform rabbis from the Eastern United States that was created despite opposition from the Central Conference of Reform Rabbis. In 1919 he withdrew from the Brooklyn Victory Celebration Committee (celebrating the Allied victory in World War I) and asked that his contributed funds be donated instead to the Red Cross; many committee members eventually resigned in protest over the overt politicization of the event, and its control by William Randolph Hearst.

The synagogue's fortunes improved in the 1940s, but in 1946, its bank threatened to foreclose on its buildings, in anticipation of their sale to the local Catholic diocese, joined Landman as rabbi in 1946. and had presented a paper at its first biennial convention. Starting in 1943 he spent 18 months in the Pacific Theater of Operations of World War II as an army chaplain; at one point he had to substitute peach juice for Passover wine. Sack had also previously been involved in anti Zionist efforts amongst the Reform rabbinate. In 1942 the Central Conference of American Rabbis had abandoned its former anti Zionist stance, and adopted a resolution favoring the creation of a Jewish army in Palestine, to fight alongside other Allied armies, and under Allied command. Sack and other prominent Reform rabbis opposed this; meeting on March 18, 1942, they agreed "there was a need to revitalize Reform Judaism, to oppose Jewish nationalism, and to publicize their point of view". They planned "for a meeting of non Zionist Reform Rabbis to discuss the problems that confront Judaism and Jews in the world emergency", to be held in Atlantic City. 36 rabbis eventually attended the two day conference on June 1, 1942, including Beth Israel's Landman. The conference led to the formation of the anti Zionist American Council for Judaism, "the only American Jewish organization ever formed for the specific purpose of fighting Zionism and opposing the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine." Landman died suddenly in 1946, One of those young families was that of Gerald I. Weider, a young rabbi who joined the synagogue's staff in 1978. all housed in the Temple House. In 1985, Weider and Beth Elohim, in cooperation with the rabbis of the Park Slope Jewish Center and Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes, proposed opening a liberal Jewish day school in Brooklyn. Though housed at Beth Elohim, it would not be affiliated with any specific Jewish movement, and was intended for children from all branches of Judaism. At the time Beth Elohim had approximately 500 member families and 141 children in the preschool. In the 1980s and 1990s Beth Elohim's buildings were repaired and refurbished a number of times. The sanctuary ceiling cracked in the early 1980s, and services were held in Temple House for a time. The congregation mounted a "Save our Sanctuary" campaign in 1982, and repaired the ceiling. In the 1980s Beth Elohim also refurbished the Moses stained glass window, and painted the main sanctuary. That year Sack (by then Rabbi Emeritus) died; the year before his death his son, Robert, at his induction as a Second Circuit judge, had described his father as "the most open minded man he had ever known".