B'nai Israel Congregation (Rockville, Maryland)

B'nai Israel Congregation is an egalitarian Conservative synagogue affiliated with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.[1] Its Rockville campus consists of two principal buildings: the Gerald S. Snyder Building and the Thelma and Melvin Lenkin Education and Activities Center.[1] The congregation's mission emphasizes spirituality, worship, Jewish education, social action, care for the Jewish people in Israel and worldwide, and cultivation of a warm communal environment.[1]

The congregation offers early childhood education through the Schilit Early Childhood Center, a supplementary religious school, and adult-education programming.[3][5] It welcomes people of all genders and sexual orientations, and its Dweck sanctuary has a built-in lift to the bima to support physical accessibility.[1] B'nai Israel is also a member of the Anti-Defamation League's Kulanu: Synagogues in Action Against Antisemitism network, which supports synagogues addressing antisemitism and hate in their congregations and communities.[6]

Founding in Washington, D.C.

The congregation's origins lie in late 1925, when Harry Himelfarb and Henry C. Reiner began discussing the need for a Talmud Torah at Barnett Merzel's kosher butcher shop in Northwest Washington.[4] Their conversations converged with Hyman Klavans's desire to establish a congregation, and a founding meeting was held at the Klavans home. The group purchased a house at 4708 Georgia Avenue, N.W., for use as an improvised synagogue, with initial annual dues of $12.[4]

On August 3, 1926, the District of Columbia incorporation charter was signed by William Halam, Harry Himelfarb, Hyman Klavans, Maurice Lavine, Barnett Merzel, Sol Spivak, and Elisha Stearman.[4] The institution was incorporated as Congregation and Talmud Torah B'nai Israel, reflecting the central place of religious education in its identity. It began as an Orthodox congregation using Nussach S'fard, a liturgical rite familiar to several founders whose roots were in the Volyn and Galicia regions of Eastern Europe.[4]

Growth and Second Home

In 1929, Harry Himelfarb negotiated the purchase of the former Hamline Methodist Church building at 14th and Emerson Streets, N.W., for $25,000.[4] The building could accommodate approximately 420 worshippers in the main sanctuary and 150 more in a basement vestry room. The congregation held services and operated its Talmud Torah there for 22 years. It also acquired a 4½-acre plot in Oxon Hill, Maryland, for $4,500 and consecrated it as B'nai Israel Cemetery.[4]

The Hebrew School opened its program to girls in 1934, and the congregation's history describes it as the first Washington-area school to phase out Sunday-only classes except for primary students.[4] When Rabbi Henry Segal arrived in 1936, the congregation had 150 families, with 19 children enrolled in Hebrew school and 60 in Sunday school. Segal developed a six-year curriculum and conducted door-to-door outreach, bringing enrollment to approximately 300 children within four years.[4]

Third Building and Conservative Affiliation

A new building at 16th and Crittenden Streets opened in 1951. Mixed seating was introduced in the sanctuary, and the congregation was designated "traditional Conservative."[4] Formal affiliation with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism followed in 1957. During the 1970s, under Rabbi Matthew Simon, the congregation continued toward religious egalitarianism by allowing women to be counted in a minyan, receive an aliyah, and read from the Torah.[4]

Relocation to Rockville

The postwar suburbanization of Washington's Jewish community shaped the congregation's next major transition. By 1956, half of the area's estimated 81,000 Jews lived outside the city limits, and synagogues moved to follow their congregants into the Maryland and Virginia suburbs.[7] B'nai Israel relocated as part of a broader institutional migration that also brought the JCC of Greater Washington, the Hebrew Home for the Aged, and the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School to Rockville.[7]

The congregation's own history says the 1968 assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and the subsequent Washington riots accelerated deliberations about leaving 16th Street.[4] In 1976, Rabbi Matthew Simon led B'nai Israel into its permanent Rockville home in the Gerald S. Snyder Building.[3][4]

Rockville Campus Development

A capital campaign launched in the late 1990s sought to complete the original vision for the Rockville campus, modernize existing facilities, and establish an endowment. The campaign had a goal of $15 million.[4] In 2003, construction of the Thelma and Melvin Lenkin Education and Activities Center completed the two-building campus.[4]

During the early COVID-19 period, the congregation moved services and most programming to Zoom and livestream formats. Limited-attendance in-person High Holiday services were held in 2020 while other congregants participated online, and more than 1,000 congregants returned to in-person services in 2021 under local safety guidelines.[8]

B'nai Israel describes itself as a congregation of more than 1,200 families.[1] In 2026, over 1,100 families were reported to attend services, participate in b'nai mitzvahs, and celebrate life milestones at the synagogue.[3] The figures use different measures—overall family membership and participation in religious and communal life—but both characterize B'nai Israel as a large family-based congregation.

Jewish learning at B'nai Israel spans multiple stages of life, from the Schilit Early Childhood Center through adult-education programming.[3] A national census of Jewish supplementary schools listed a Conservative school named B'nai Israel at the congregation's 6301 Montrose Road address.[5]

Community-service activities include monthly deliveries of nutritious meals to local women experiencing homelessness and an annual December Mitzvah Day serving people across Montgomery County.[3] Congregants and clergy participate in Montgomery County's interfaith coalition and lead educational trips to historic sites of the Civil Rights Movement. During the migration of Washington-area Jewish institutions to the suburbs, B'nai Israel members also helped lead efforts on behalf of Jewish people trapped and persecuted by the Soviet Union.[3]

The congregation maintains close relationships with several communities in Israel and identifies care for the Jewish people in Israel and worldwide as a core element of its mission.[3][1]

The Rockville campus includes the Gerald S. Snyder Building and the Thelma and Melvin Lenkin Education and Activities Center.[1] The Dweck sanctuary has a built-in lift to the bima, while the Chod Media Center has housed the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington's research library. The collection moved there in the winter of 2007–2008 in 65 boxes and included roughly 550 books as well as periodicals, audiovisual materials, microfilm, and microfiche.[9] The Fanaroff Auditorium has served as a venue for the society's programs.[10]

B'nai Israel also says it partnered with RightHear, an Israeli-founded accessibility technology company, to install an audio-guidance system for people who are blind or have low vision.[11] The system supplies information about the building's layout, orientation, surroundings, events, and services. The congregation describes itself as the first synagogue in North America to offer this type of RightHear-enabled environment; this remains its own institutional claim.[11]

Rabbi Henry Segal, who arrived in 1936, is credited in the congregation's history with transforming its educational program and substantially expanding Hebrew-school enrollment.[4] Rabbi Matthew Simon served during the congregation's transition to Rockville and its move toward egalitarian practice; by 2011, he held the title of rabbi emeritus.[12][4] Simon also participated in the 1965 Selma civil-rights march while serving at a Conservative congregation in Los Angeles and later worked with Black clergy on social-action issues including voting and housing rights.[12]

In 2018, Michael Safra was identified as senior rabbi and Jonathan Schnitzer as emeritus.[13] A 2022 JNS commentary listed Safra as senior rabbi and Mitchell Berkowitz as associate rabbi.[14] All three remained listed among the congregation's clergy on its 2026 website.[1]

Safra has written about the historical and religious connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. He concluded one essay: "Covenant. God. Israel. You can't have one without the other."[15]