A Shul with a Rich History
Congregation Ahavas Israel is a 120 year-old synagogue located in
the Greenpoint Historic District in North Brooklyn, New York. The
synagoguge holds Sabbath and holiday services, all of which are
followed by communal meals. It also organizes classes by visiting
rabbis and scholars, and hosts Hanukah and parties as well as
other communal events.
Ahavas Israel is the only remaining Jewish congregation in a
neighborhood that once supported five synagogues. Today’s
Ahavas Israel is the result of a merger of three of five synagogues
that had begun serving Greenpoint in the late 19th century: Temple
Beth El of Greenpoint, Ahavas Israel and Hebrew Educational
Alliance of Greenpoint. According to available records, the East
Building of Ahavas Israel was originally a Congregationalist Church
dating back as far as 1871. From at least 1886 onwards it operated
as a German-Jewish Reform synagogue called Temple Beth El.
Ahavas Israel itself came into existence in 1893 when it was
incorporated by German-Jewish émigrés in Kings County as an
Orthodox congregation. Both institutions merged in 1898 and laid
the cornerstone for the West Building in 1903. In the early 1900s, the
Hebrew Education Alliance of Greenpoint formed and constructed a
synagogue on Manhattan Avenue, Greenpoint’s main commercial
thoroughfare. After a fire destroyed this structure in 1960, the
Hebrew Education Alliance merged with Ahavas Israel on the basis
of an executive order of then-Governor Nelson Rockefeller.
Congregation Ahavas Israel is a 120 year-old synagogue located in
the Greenpoint Historic District in North Brooklyn, New York. The
synagoguge holds Sabbath and holiday services, all of which are
followed by communal meals. It also organizes classes by visiting
rabbis and scholars, and hosts Hanukah and parties as well as
other communal events.
Ahavas Israel is the only remaining Jewish congregation in a
neighborhood that once supported five synagogues. Today’s
Ahavas Israel is the result of a merger of three of five synagogues
that had begun serving Greenpoint in the late 19th century: Temple
Beth El of Greenpoint, Ahavas Israel and Hebrew Educational
Alliance of Greenpoint. According to available records, the East
Building of Ahavas Israel was originally a Congregationalist Church
dating back as far as 1871. From at least 1886 onwards it operated
as a German-Jewish Reform synagogue called Temple Beth El.
Ahavas Israel itself came into existence in 1893 when it was
incorporated by German-Jewish émigrés in Kings County as an
Orthodox congregation. Both institutions merged in 1898 and laid
the cornerstone for the West Building in 1903. In the early 1900s, the
Hebrew Education Alliance of Greenpoint formed and constructed a
synagogue on Manhattan Avenue, Greenpoint’s main commercial
thoroughfare. After a fire destroyed this structure in 1960, the
Hebrew Education Alliance merged with Ahavas Israel on the basis
of an executive order of then-Governor Nelson Rockefeller.
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