Intercongregational Service Opens Jewish Part in Boston’s Tercentenary Celebration

The intercongregational service of thanksgiving and commemoration of Boston’s tercentenary celebration held at Temple Ohabei Shalom, the second oldest Jewish congregation in New England, marked the first affair of the various features planned by the Jewish Tercentenary committee in conection with the general celebration. All of the leading rabbis of Greater Boston, state and municipal officials were present.

The principal address was made by Rabbi David de Sola Pool, rabbi of the Spanish Portuguese synagogue Shearith Israel in New York. Dr. Pool traced the influence of the Hebraic tradition upon early Puritan Boston. He pointed out that it “was the inspiration of the Jewish Bible which led the Puritan pioneers to these shores and it was that same Jewish literary guidance which determined the course of their lives as individuals and of the polity of the commonwealth which they built up.

“For those first settlers in Boston and in Massachussets generally were devout and devoted readers of the Jewish scriptures. It was the Jewish Bible which provided them with their morals and ideals. The infant colony bringing no code of laws from the mother landlooked up to Moses as their lawgiver, and in the organization of the colony and the administration of its courts, they definitely adopted the Mosaic code as their standard”.

Other speakers were Rabbi H. H. Rubenovitz of Temple Mishkan Tefilah, chairman of the committee in charge of the meeting, Alexander Brin, editor of the “Jewish Advocate” and chairman of the Jewish Tercentenary Committee, Hon. Gaspat G. Bacon, president of the state senate, Samuel Silverman, corporation counsel of Boston and Charles F. Crowley, of the Brookline board of selectmen.