Congregation Beth Israel (Portland, Oregon)

Congregation Beth Israel is located at 1972 NW Flanders Street, Portland, Oregon 97209.[4] The congregation is affiliated with the Reform Movement through the Union for Reform Judaism.[1] In September 2021, its executive director reported that it had 850 families.[5]

The campus includes the historic Main Sanctuary, the Sherman Education Building, and the Schnitzer Family Center. The Sherman building houses a URJ-accredited Religious School and the Jennifer Barnum Luria Early Childhood Center; the congregation reports that more than 300 students study and worship there each year. The Schnitzer Family Center, built in 1993 across Flanders Street, contains the Pollin Chapel, Lipman Foyer, Goodman Reception Hall, administrative offices, and a board room.[4]

The congregation also maintains Beth Israel Cemetery and Landau Chapel at 426 SW Taylors Ferry Road in Southwest Portland. The cemetery offers ground burial, vault entombment, and urn niches in four mausoleums.[4][6]

The prevailing chronology dates Beth Israel's organization to May 2, 1858, when eight men convened at Portland's National Hotel and established a congregation with 21 male members.[2] The Jewish Encyclopedia names organizers including Leopold Mayer, M. Mansfield, B. Simon, Abraham Frank, Jacob Mayer, H. F. Bloch, Samuel Levy, D. Simon, L. Cahn, S. M. Lyon, L. Cohn, Simon Blumauer, and J. Micholup.[7] An 1888 account by Isaac Markens gives 1857 as the founding year, however.[3] A 1954 history estimated that Portland had about 30 Jews in 1858 and described Jews from other Oregon settlements traveling to the city for the High Holy Days.[8] For a number of years, Beth Israel was Oregon's only Jewish congregation.[7]

The congregation's earliest services were conducted by Reverend Samuel M. Laski above a livery stable and blacksmith shop. Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco lent Beth Israel a Torah and shofar, which the congregation eventually purchased.[2] Peter Wiernik's history identifies Rev. H. Bories as the first hazzan and Rev. Dr. Julius Eckman as the first rabbi and preacher, followed by Rev. Dr. Isaac Schwab.[9] Markens wrote that the congregation used the Minhag-America rite and that Reform was introduced during Schwab's ministry.[3]

Beth Israel founded a Hebrew Benevolent Society in 1859, although a Hebrew Union College thesis noted that its later history was not known to the author.[10] The congregation also states that Oregon's first Jewish marriage was performed in its original meeting space.[1]

Sources differ on the date of Beth Israel's first dedicated synagogue. The congregation's history says the building at Southwest Fifth and Oak streets was built in 1859, while the Jewish Encyclopedia dates its erection to August 1861.[1][7] JewishGen likewise describes the building as completed in 1861 and identifies it as Oregon's first synagogue building.[11]

After outgrowing its first building, the congregation erected a larger synagogue in 1889. JewishGen describes it as seating 750 people and having a large rose window and pipe organ.[11] The Jewish Encyclopedia says it was built during the ministry of Rabbi J. Bloch and the presidency of Simon Blumauer, who had served as president for more than half of the congregation's first 47 years; it says the building was reconstructed and freed from debt in 1903.[7]

Sources also conflict over the building's fire chronology. A 1954 retrospective says that fire ravaged the temple in 1903 and that a new building followed at 19th, Flanders, and Everett streets.[8] The congregation's current history and JewishGen instead date the destructive fire to 1923, with JewishGen describing it as arson, and place completion of the present sanctuary in 1928.[1][11]

Rabbi Stephen S. Wise was called to Beth Israel's pulpit in 1900 and served in Portland for six years.[12] The American Jewish Archives states that he became the congregation's rabbi shortly before marrying Louise Waterman and spent the next six years pioneering in interfaith cooperation, social service, and civic leadership.[12] A 1954 history quoted the Oregon Journal describing Wise as "one of the most brilliant men ever to occupy a pulpit in Portland."[8] The congregation credits his Oregon years with helping lay the foundation for his later advocacy of liberal Judaism and Zionism.[1]

Rabbi Emanuel Rose served as Senior Rabbi from 1960 until his retirement in 2006. Rabbi Michael Z. Cahana began serving the congregation in 2006 and is identified by Beth Israel as its eighteenth Senior Rabbi.[1]

Congregation Beth Israel has maintained social-action, educational, and interfaith programs. Since 2007, it has collaborated with Portland's African American communities, including Vancouver Avenue Baptist Church, on lectures and Shabbat services honoring Martin Luther King Jr. Past speakers have included Congressman John Lewis, Myrlie Evers-Williams, and Bryan Stevenson.[1]

In 2021, the congregation reported a membership of 850 families.[5] During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rabbi Michael Cahana and the congregation expanded their use of technology. Although Beth Israel had streamed services before the pandemic, it used Zoom to create a more intimate experience, with clergy and congregants participating from their homes.[13] For the first pandemic Rosh Hashanah, a professional crew filmed the service out of order, with choir members spaced around the sanctuary; separately recorded segments were then edited into a continuous service. Bnei mitzvah ceremonies were adapted by bringing Torah scrolls to family homes and conducting services remotely.[13]

In 2024, Beth Israel joined about a dozen Portland Jewish groups in withdrawing support from the Oregon Food Bank after objecting to a statement the food bank issued about the Israel-Hamas war. Earlier that Passover, Cahana had urged congregants to acknowledge hunger among Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The Jewish groups argued that the food bank's statement unfairly targeted Israel, while the food bank said it had considered differing viewpoints and maintained its position. Beth Israel had supported the organization for years before the dispute.[14]

The present Main Sanctuary was completed in 1928. The neo-Byzantine building was designed by Morris H. Whitehouse, Herman Brookman, and Harry A. Herzog. The congregation states that its design concepts were derived from the Steelerstrasse Synagogue in Essen, Germany, and highlights its prominent dome. Some construction materials came from Norway, while the exterior stone was quarried in Olympia, Washington, and the terracotta shingles came from California.[4]

The sanctuary has eighteen stained-glass windows depicting aspects of Judaism and interfaith cooperation; one was donated jointly by Trinity Episcopal Cathedral and St. Mary's Cathedral. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 under Criteria A, for broad historical patterns, and C, for architecture. The congregation also records its inclusion on Sacred Spaces International's Portland list in 2010, the National Trust for Historic Preservation's list of ten Sacred Places in America in 2015, and the PBS documentary "God in America" in 2016.[4] JewishGen describes the sanctuary as seating 1,000 people.[11]

Congregation Beth Israel holds a Torah scroll on permanent loan from the Memorial Scrolls Trust in London. The congregation identifies it as originating in Taus-Domazlice, Czechoslovakia, and says it was among 1,564 Torah scrolls looted during the Second World War from synagogues in Bohemia, "Morovia," and Slovakia. In 1963, the Czech cultural-property agency Atria approached London art dealer Eric Estorick, and the scrolls were transferred to Westminster Synagogue in London on February 7, 1964.[1]

Judge Gus J. Solomon and his wife, Elizabeth "Libby" Solomon, assisted efforts to distribute the scrolls to synagogues worldwide and helped bring Beth Israel's scroll to Portland. It was placed in the congregation's Ark and dedicated during Shabbat evening services on May 10, 1968, as part of the congregation's 110th anniversary. In 2019, an expert sofer assisted with restoring the scroll, while congregants attended educational events and had an opportunity to help scribe a letter in the Torah.[1]

Beth Israel Cemetery, also listed as Hebrew Cemetery and associated by JewishGen with Mt. Zion, is located at 426 Southwest Taylors Ferry Road in Southwest Portland. The site has an on-site Landau Chapel and provides ground burial, vault entombment, and urn niches in four mausoleums. Family plots are available in a developed section of the cemetery.[6]

An earlier Beth Israel burial ground was bounded by Hood, Corbett, Meade, and Porter streets. A historical newspaper account reproduced by JewishGen says the one-acre site contained hundreds of graves and was relocated after the expanding city came too close. The city ordered the removal and covered its expenses. The exhumation took more than a month, with every grave opened and the remains reinterred in a newer plot.[6]

The American Jewish Committee included a December 30, 2020 fire at a building on Beth Israel's grounds in a report cataloguing antisemitic incidents involving Jewish institutions. Police confirmed shortly after the fire that they believed it had been intentionally set, although the source provides no further information about a motive, perpetrator, or investigative outcome.[15]

On May 2, 2022, a fire and antisemitic graffiti were discovered outside the historic sanctuary. Scorch marks were visible on the ground and on a door, but the building was not significantly damaged. Rabbi Michael Z. Cahana said that no one was hurt and the physical damage was minimal, while emphasizing the incident's effect on the congregation's sense of safety.[16]