It was the year of 1899. Seattle was a city whose main streets were of dirt, with plank sidewalks; a frontier town whose chief public conveyance was a horse car, which proudly ran through the woods to Lake Union. No automobiles had yet been sent in Seattle. The town’s principal buildings were wooden, with false fronts. Indians were a common sight.
Amid these surroundings, on May 29, was born Seattle’s only Reform congregation -its second congregation at the time. It had been preceded by five years by what was then the city’s only Orthodox congregation, Bikur Cholum Synagogue. Both stemmed from the same root-Congregation Ahavath Sholom, formed in 1889 and disbanded in 1895.
This week, in an imposing $85,000 house of worship which adjoins a $140,000 Temple Center, members of Temple de Hirsch, Northwest’s largest Reform congregation, gathered a exercises to commemorate the thirty-fifth anniversary of the bringing of Reform Judaism to Seattle and to dedicate Yahrzeit plaques for those who, though they have passed beyond, are still remembered.
STIR OLD MEMORIES
For a handful of Seattle Jews ceremonies this week stirred old memories-of old days long gone by, when the Seattle Jewish community consisted of no more than 200 families and Temple de Hirsch was begun with seventy members.
Among the “old timers” now grey in the service of the Jewish cause who relived again the now historic moments when the new congregation was founded, were A. ### Seattle’s first Jewish city councilman, who came to this city forty-four years ago; Emanuel Rosenberg, who was vice-president at the formation of Temple de Hirsch and today holds the same office; Jacob Berkman, Isaac Cooper, Henry Pickard, S. Kreilsheimer and Nathan Eckstein, hailed as Seattle’s foremost Jew.
Heading the celebration are Melville Monheimer, congregation president, Merton Schwabacher and Richard E. Lang and Otto S. Grunbaum, all sons of former congregation officers.
On March 3, 1907, the cornerstone of the present Temple de Hirsch was laid.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
