The First Roumanian-American Congregation,or First American-Roumanian congregation, First Rumanian-American Congregation also known as Congregation Shaarey Shomayimor Congregation Shaarey Shomoyim, Congregation Shaarai Shamoyim, Congregation Shaarai Shamoyim (), or the Roumanishe Shulor Roumaniashe Shul, Rumanische shul (Yiddish for "Romanian synagogue"), was an Orthodox Jewish congregation at 89–93 Rivington Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The congregation was organized in 1885 by Romanian-Jewish immigrants, serving the Lower East Side's large Romanian-Jewish community. The Rivington Street building, erected around 1860, switched between being a church and a synagogue and was extensively remodeled in 1889. The First Roumanian-American congregation purchased it in 1902 and again remodeled it. ()
The synagogue became famous as the "Cantor's Carnegie Hall", because of its high ceiling, good acoustics, and seating for up to 1,800 people. Yossele Rosenblatt, Moshe Koussevitzky, Zavel Kwartin, Moishe Oysher, Jan Peerce and Richard Tucker were all cantors there. Red Buttons sang in the choir, George Burns was a member, and Edward G. Robinson had his Bar Mitzvah there. The congregation's membership was in the thousands in the 1940s, but by the early 2000s had declined to around 40, as Jews moved out of the Lower East Side. Though its building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998, the congregation was reluctant to accept outside assistance in maintaining it. In December 2005, water damage was found in the structural beams, and services were moved to the living room of the rabbi's mother. In January 2006, the synagogue's roof collapsed, and the building was demolished two months later.
Origins
First Roumanian-American/Congregation Shaarey Shamoyim From 1881 through 1914, approximately 2 million Jews immigrated to the United States from Europe. An estimated three-quarters of them settled in New York City, primarily on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.Dolkart (1997), Section 8, p. 3, citing Binder & Reimers (1995), p. 114. Over 75,000 of these immigrants were from Romania, where Jews faced antisemitic laws, violence and expulsion. These hardships, combined with an economic depression influenced by low crop yields, resulted in 30 percent of the Jews in Romania emigrating to the United States.Dolkart (1997), Section 8, pp. 3–4.
Romanian Jewish immigrants in New York City gravitated to a fifteen-block area bounded by Allen, Ludlow, Houston and Grand streets. This "Romanian quarter" became the most densely populated part of the Lower East Side, with 1,500 to 1,800 people per block.Jones (2005), p. 3. These immigrants founded the First Roumanian-American congregation, also known as Congregation Shaarey Shamoyim.Epstein (2007), p. 182.
The origins of the congregation are disputed;Diner, Shandler, Wenger (2000), p. 125. "The synagogue is the First Roumanian-American Congregation, whose congregational origins remain in dispute, but whose physical presence is undeniable." its establishment in 1885 may have been a re-organization of a congregation founded in 1860. Located initially close to the Romanian quarter at 70 Hester Street, and later situated at the heart of it with the move to Rivington Street, the synagogue was the preferred house of worship for the quarter's inhabitants.
Rivington Street building The Rivington Street building was constructed as a Protestant church around 1860 by the Second Reformed Presbyterian Church,Dolkart (1997), Section 8, p. 1. which served the area's large German immigrant community. In November 1864 the building was sold to the Orthodox German-Jewish Congregation Shaaray Hashomayim ("Gates of the Heavens"), which had been founded in 1841. Though its Hebrew name was essentially the same as that used by the First Roumanian-American congregation—Congregation Shaarey Shamoyim—which later purchased the building in 1902, the two congregations were unrelated.Dolkart (1997), Section 8, p. 7.
By the late 1880s, the German-Jewish community had mostly moved from the Lower East Side. In 1889, Congregation Shaaray Hashomayim moved to 216 East 15th Street, near Second Avenue, selling the Rivington Street building to the New York City Church Extension and Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which built or purchased churches, missions, and Sunday schools in New York City.Dolkart (1997), Section 8, pp. 1–2.
The Church Extension and Missionary Society engaged J. Cleaveland Cady to design major alterations to the structure. Cady was, at the time, New York's most famous church architect, and had designed many other public institutional buildings, including university buildings, hospitals and museums. His work included the original Metropolitan Opera building (since demolished), the Richardsonian Romanesque West 78th Street wing of the American Museum of Natural History, and several other buildings for the Church Extension and Missionary Society. The renovations cost approximately $36,000 (today $), and included an entirely new Romanesque Revival facade in the reddish-orange brick that Cady also used on several other churches.Dolkart (1997), Section 8, pp. 2–3.
Renamed the Allen Street Methodist Episcopal Church (or Allen Street Memorial Church), the Rivington Street building's new purpose was to "attract Jewish immigrants seeking conversion". It was, however, unsuccessful in this endeavor. In 1895, the church's pastor stated, "The existence of the church here attracts few. Our audiences are small, and contain almost no Jews."Dolkart (1997), Section 8, p. 3, citing the Report of the New York City Church Extension and Missionary Society (1895), p. 29.
Purchase and renovation by First Roumanian-American In 1902, the First Roumanian-American congregation/Congregation Shaarey Shamoyim purchased the Rivington Street building from the Church Extension and Missionary Society to satisfy a need for a larger building to serve the Lower East Side's rapidly growing Romanian-Jewish population.Dolkart (1997), Section 8, p. 4. At the time, the property was valued at $95,000 (today $).The New York Times, April 26, 1902, p. 14. The funds for the purchase were raised from the members of the congregation, and to honor those contributing $10 or more, names were engraved on one of four marble slabs in the stairway to the main sanctuary. The most generous gift was $500, at a time when $10 was two weeks' pay.Bastable (2004). The congregation also took out two mortgages; one for $50,000 (today $) with the Title Insurance Company, and a second for $30,000 (today $) with the Church Extension and Missionary Society.
The congregation commissioned Charles E. Reid for extensive renovations, at a cost of $6,000 (today $).The New York Times, June 22, 1902, p. 19. The "eclectic Byzantine"Dolkart (1997), Section 8, p. 5. remodeling involved converting it for Jewish use by removing Christian symbols and adding a Torah ark and bimah (central platform from which the Torah is read) at the sanctuary's north end. The renovations retained the original "horseshoe-shaped gallery supported by twelve Ionic columns" and wooden pews with reading shelves (likely from the 1889 Cady renovation),Dolkart (1997), Section 7, p. 3. but a number of structural changes were made. Steel beams were added to support the weight of the ark and bimah, the rear wall was re-built and the gallery extended to meet it, two skylights were added (a concave stained glass one and a clear glass one over the ark), and at the front of the building, on top of the shallow (14 feet deep) fourth-story attic, an equally shallow fifth-story attic was added.
The completed structure filled almost the entire width of its approximately by lot,Mark (March 10, 2006).Dolkart (1997), Section 7, p. 1. and seated 1,600 to 1,800. Dedicated in late December 1902, it was the Lower East Side's largest synagogueEpstein (2007), p. 183 and only Romanesque one,Gelfand (1992). and it became an "architectural and public showpiece".Weissman Joselit (1990), p. 5.
Early activities By 1903 the synagogue was well established on Rivington Street, and, due to its capacity and prominence, was often the site of significant or mass meetings. In April 1903 a service to honor the memory of Reform rabbi and Zionist leader Gustav Gottheil was held there,The New York Times, April 29, 1903, p. 9. and a similar service was held for Theodor Herzl the following year. At the latter service, which was boycotted by Orthodox rabbis, Herzl was not eulogized, nor was his name mentioned.The New York Times, July 8, 1904, p. 9.
The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (UOJCA) held its third annual convention at the synagogue in June 1903, attended by around 100 delegates, and presided over by the organization's president, Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes. The most important resolutions adopted at that meeting were one that deprecated the granting of a get (religious divorce document) to—or allowing subsequent re-marriage by—people who had not first obtained a civil divorce, and the request that congregations with mostly foreign-born members "secure an English-speaking rabbi".The New York Times, June 22, 1903, p. 12. At the meeting Albert Lucas also spoke out strongly against attempts by Christian groups to proselytize Jewish children in nurseries and kindergartens. Ostensibly to combat this proselytization, in 1903 the congregation was one of several New York City synagogues that allowed Lucas the use of its premises for free religious classes, "open to all children of the neighborhood".See Kaufman (1999), p. 142, and the American Jewish Year Book, Vol. 7, p. 85.
In December 1905 a mass meeting was held at the synagogue to protest massacres of Jews in Russia and mourn their deaths,The New York Times, December 11, 1905, p. 2. and the congregation donated $500 to a fund for the sufferers.American Jewish Year Book, Vol. 8, p. 194. In March 1909 Orthodox groups held meetings there to organize opposition to the constitution and make-up of Judah Leon Magnes's Kehilla, an overarching organization intended to represent all of New York's Jews, which lasted until 1922.The New York Times, March 28, 1909, p. 11. A mass meeting of local residents and businessmen to combat Lower East Side gangsters was held at the synagogue in 1913.The New York Times, September 1, 1913, p. 14.
The Rivington Street synagogue was also a preferred venue for airing issues relevant specifically to Romanian-American Jews. In 1905 it was the site of New York City's only memorial service honoring United States Secretary of State John Hay, who had worked on behalf of oppressed Jews in Romania.The New York Times, July 10, 1905, p. 7. In 1908, the synagogue hosted a meeting of over 30 religious organizations representing Romanian-American Jews, at which the formation of a federation of those organizations was proposed,The New York Times, March 30, 1908, p. 6. and again in 1916 hosted a similar meeting of "two hundred delegates representing thirty-five organizations ... to plan incorporation of the American League of Rumanian Jews".The New York Times, September 18, 1916, p. 8. At the latter meeting steps were taken to raise $1,000,000 (today $) for oppressed Jews in Romania, and to campaign for their "equal rights and their emancipation from thralldom".