Shaarey Tphiloh is a Modern Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue located at 400 Deering Avenue in Portland, Maine, in the United States. The congregation says it is the oldest continuously operating synagogue in Portland. The name of the synagogue literally means "Gates of Prayer" in Hebrew.
History Founding the Shul, 1880-1910 Immigrant Jews started arriving in large numbers in Portland, Maine, from the Pale of Settlement at the end of the nineteenth century. In 1873, a ritual slaughterer visited Portland to perform shehita." In the 1880s, the Portland Jewish community increased to sixty families. Over the next few decades, the Jewish population grew exponentially. In 1912, the Jewish population was 2000; in 1920, it climbed to 3000. Portland was referred to as the "Jerusalem of the north" because of its Jewish population.Jewish secular institutions of Portland Lipez, p. In 1930, Jews were about ten percent of the city's general population.
In the late 1880s, two prayer congregations emerged: Shaarith Israel and Beth Midrash Hagadol from approximately 80 Jewish families. In 1890, Rabbi Chaim (Hyman) Mordechai Lasker (1864–1932) was hired as the rabbi of Shirat Israel. Rabbi Lasker came from Łomża, Poland. He had studied in Kaunas (Kovno) and received ordination from Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor. Among his achievements in Portland was the organization of Talmudic study groups that continued for years after he left the city.The Talmud study groups were led by Michael Rubinsky, Abraham J. Bernstein, and Joseph Modes. In "Portland Jewry" p. 21. See online at: https://www.mainejews.org/docs/BenBand/Chap5.pdf Rabbi Lasker left Portland for Buffalo in 1895, and he was replaced by Rabbi A. Sharshafsky.See his work on Portland, Shershevsky 1896 (Aronson: New York) He was a rabbi from 1895 to 1897. After Rabbi Lasker left his role was filed by a Lazarus Druker, a learned immigrant from The Pale who also fulfilled the ritual duties of shechita for the community. Another shul was started in 1890 on Fore St. in Portland, calling itself Beth Hamidrash Hagadol. This group, headed by Isaac Abrams, also ran a Hebrew school. In 1899, Sharith Israel brought in a new rabbi named Rabbi Solomon David Ha-Kohen Sprince (1846–1929). Rabbi Sprince was born in Mezhirichi. He studied in Krynki (Poland) and Volozhin, under Misnagdim teachers. He had served as a rabbi for a short stint in Paris and was friends with Rabbi Zadoc Kahn, the chief rabbi of France. Meanwhile, in 1901, another small shul, Beth Judah, brought in a rabbi named David Feinstein, but they agreed to call Rabbi Sprince of Sharith Israel, the Chief Rabbi of Portland. Nevertheless, in 1902, Rabbi Sprince left Portland for Montreal.See also, at kevarim.com Rabbi Shlomo David Sprince After serving in Maine, Rabbi Sprince served in Montreal at the Austro-Hungarian Synagogue, (1901-1904), B’nai Jacob (Associate 1902-1905), Chevra Shaas (Associate 1903-5), and Temple Solomon Ahavash Achim (Associate 1906-1908). Shortly thereafter he moved to Boston. In 1912, he published a book, Kerem Shlomo.
Following this changeover and division in the community, an effort was made to coordinate and establish one large synagogue to represent the community as a gathering place for all. In 1900 Sharith Israel and Beth Midrash Hagadol agreed to build a new synagogue together. It became known as Shaarey Tphiloh and was built on Newbury Street.
The congregation's first building, a large, neo-Classical building, was constructed between 1901 and 1905 at 145 Newbury Street in the Old Port neighborhood of Portland. At the cornerstone dedication on September 14, 1904, Dr. Elias Caplan, a prestigious member of the congregation, declared that the community not only honored its Jewish traditions but also was meant to be patriotic to the United States, "We are witnessing today in this great country the dawn of a new era… The institutions of this mighty republic are our institutions, its laws are our laws, its flag, the flag of the free and the brave, our flag." In 1907, the congregation hired its first Rav, Chaim Nosson Shohet, a deeply religious scholar who had served as a rabbi to Jewish communities in the Russian Empire (modern day Estonia and Lithuania).
1910–1930 In 1915 a dispute between the board of directors and their rabbi, Rabbi Chaim Shohet, took place. Rabbi Shohet had served as the av beit din, or head of court, in Obeliai, Lithuania , in the Kovno region and before that as a rabbi in Võru,For history of Jewish residence in Võru, see Yodaiken, Len. "The Estonians" at https://muuseum.jewish.ee/stories/The%20Estonians.pdf the region of Livland (Livonia). He makes reference to his service to Jewish communities in the former Russian Empire in his scholarly work on Jewish law, "Zekher Chaim," which he published around this time. Still, the congregation dismissed Rabbi Shohet from his position at Shaarey Tphiloh in 1916,Rabbi Shohet tried bringing in his son as his successor, but some members did not want that. See oral history of Maurice Rubinoff, in digital commons Portland Public Library. but he remained in Portland and became rabbi at Congregation Adas Israel on Middle Street. Eventually, that congregation became Congregation Etz Chaim and built a synagogue on India Street. Also in 1915, Max Pinansky, a Harvard-trained lawyer, asked the leaders of Shaarey Tphiloh to collaborate with him on a project to include more English in the prayer service and to permit mixed seating for men and women in the pews during the prayer service.Liberating Visions: Religion and the Challenge of Change in Maine,1820 to the Present maine.edu p.23
In 1917, Rabbi Yitzhak David Essrig, was chosen as the Rabbi of Shaarey Tphiloh. As a young child, he studied Jewish law and traditions under the tutelage of his father, Rabbi Nachum Etrog, who served as the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi in Safed, Palestine. Rabbi Essrig received his ordination from both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Rabbis from the Rabbinical Courts of Tiberias and Jerusalem, and from the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. As a young Rabbi, he began a lifelong passion to study the Jerusalem Talmud, which focused on the laws and traditions from the land of Israel. This culminated in the publication of a seven-volume Talmudic Encyclopedia based upon the Jerusalem Talmud called Pri Etz Hadar, which is studied today in Yeshivahs in Israel, America and around the world. When he succeeded Rabbi Shohet in 1917, Rabbi David Essrig was fluent in Hebrew, English and Yiddish. While Rabbi Essrig continued as did his Orthodox Rabbinic predecessors to lead prayer services in the traditional Orthodox Hebrew liturgy with separate seating for men and women, he introduced English into the prayer service and taught religious studies in English in order to appeal to and help inform young American Jewish families and youth who did not know Yiddish or Hebrew . In 1932, Rabbi Essrig published The Fountain of Wisdom, one of the earliest Jewish books written in English to teach America's youth how Torah, Jewish history and ethics, and the Jewish life cycle events can help youth and families live informed and meaningful Jewish lives in America. The importance of Rabbi Essrig's The Fountain of Wisdom received much praise from the Chief Rabbi of Palestine, Abraham Isaac Kook in a personal editorial written in the Bnei Brith Messenger shortly after the book's release in 1932.
In 1918 Shaarey Tphiloh and another congregation, Anshei Sfard, a breakaway congregation from Shaarey Tphiloh that had met in the basement of the building until moving to another location nearby, decided that they would share David Essrig as their rabbi. In 1923, the Etz Chaim Synagogue under the direction of Rabbi Moshe Shohet, the son of Rabbi Chaim Shohet, introduced sermons in English on Friday night, a sign that the wider Portland Jewish community was in favor of this change introduced by Rabbi Essrig. In 1926, Rabbi Essrig left Shaarey Tphiloh and Anshei Sfard to become Rabbi of the Beth Israel Congregation (the Olive Street Synagogue) in Los Angeles. Then then returned to Palestine in the 1930s where he became the head of the Rabbinical Court in Haifa, before returning to America to become the Chief Rabbi in Utica New York.Bnai Brith Messenger. 23 June 1950. archived at www.nli.org/en/newspaper. In 1926 Rabbi Essrig moved to Los Angeles to become rabbi of the Beth Israel Congregation (the Olive Street Synagogue). After his move to LA, he moved to Palestine and then was rabbi in Utica, NY. In 1932, Rabbi Moshe Shohet moved to Quincy, Massachusetts and then made Aliyah to the land of Israel in 1939, where he is buried on the Mount of Olives.https://mainesynagogues.mjmexhibits.org/current-portland/ Rabbi Moshe Shohet moved to Quincy, MA in 1932 and then emigrated to Palestine in 1939, where he is buried on the Mt of Olives. His son, Rabbi Dovid Menachem, was the Rabbi at Agudas Achim, Yonkers, New York.
1930–1970