Park East Synagogue

163 East 67th Street | Upper East Side | built 1890

Open on the map11 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1888

    Rabbi Bernard Drachman and Jonas Weil organize a new Orthodox congregation

    After Rabbi Bernard Drachman left Beth Israel Bikkur Cholem on Lexington Avenue, where members had voted to change the seating rules, his father-in-law Jonas Weil urged him to start a congregation of his own. Weil, a wealthy real estate man, offered to back it financially. By 1888 Drachman had gathered the new group, and a year later a constitution named him rabbi for life. This congregation, Zichron Ephraim, would build the synagogue on East 67th Street.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1889

    Builders start work and lay the cornerstone of Zichron Ephraim on Thanksgiving Day

    Work on the new synagogue began in September 1889, and the cornerstone followed on Thanksgiving Day of that year. Jonas Weil and his brother Samuel had given the land and funds, so the congregation named itself Zichron Ephraim, in memory of the Weils' father Ephraim, who had never left Baden. From the start the congregation put special weight on education, and its Talmud Torah counted Harry Houdini among its first pupils.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1890

    Schneider and Herter give an Orthodox congregation a Moorish Revival facade

    The architects Ernst Schneider and Henry Herter, who mostly designed tenements on the Lower East Side and in Clinton, mixed Moorish and Byzantine detail on the front. The landmarks report finds the choice curious, because Zichron Ephraim was founded as an alternative to Reform temples such as Emanu-El and Beth-El, whose lavish buildings had already fixed the Moorish style as the look of Reform Jewish architecture.

    “…it is curious that the Moorish Revival style was adopted for the new synagogue building…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 1890

    September 7

    Congregation Zichron Ephraim dedicates its synagogue on East 67th Street

    Rabbi Bernard Drachman's new Orthodox congregation was backed by his father-in-law Jonas Weil, who with his brother Samuel paid for the land and the roughly $200,000 building. They named it Zichron Ephraim in memory of their father. Ernst Schneider and Henry Herter designed it in a Byzantine and Moorish Revival style, with seats for 1,000 worshippers.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1952

    September 1

    Zev Zahavy is appointed rabbi of the congregation

    Rabbi Zev Zahavy was appointed to lead the congregation on September 1, 1952. He became known as a dynamic spokesman for Orthodox Judaism, and the New York Times reported on many of his sermons. Together with his wife Edith, a noted educator, he founded the Park East Day School, which now teaches children from early childhood through eighth grade.

    “Zev Zahavy was appointed rabbi of the synagogue on September 1, 1952 ... founded the Park East Day School.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  6. 1957

    Dublin's Lord Mayor Robert Briscoe visits the synagogue

    Robert Briscoe, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, came to the synagogue and prayed there in 1957. It was one of several visits by prominent figures from abroad over the decades, which later included Pope Benedict XVI and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  7. 1962

    Arthur Schneier, a Holocaust survivor, becomes the synagogue's senior rabbi

    Arthur Schneier, an Austrian-born rabbi, became senior rabbi at Park East in 1962. Over the next half century he hosted Pope Benedict XVI and two United Nations secretaries general, and in 1965 he founded the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, an interfaith coalition. The 2001 Presidential Citizens Medal citation called him a Holocaust survivor devoted to fighting hatred, and in 2012 the New York State Senate passed a resolution marking his fifty years in the pulpit.

    Source: Wikipedia

  8. 1980

    January 8

    The city designates Park East Synagogue a landmark

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission made the 1890 synagogue an individual New York City landmark. Its Moorish Revival design is known for an oversized rose window and asymmetrical twin towers, one taller than the other. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

    Source: Wikipedia

  9. 2008

    Pope Benedict XVI visits Park East Synagogue

    During his 2008 trip to New York, Pope Benedict XVI stopped at the synagogue, the only papal visit to a synagogue in the United States and the third anywhere. The congregation's rabbi, Arthur Schneier, who has led it since 1962, hosted him.

    Source: Wikipedia

  10. 2009

    November

    Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew visits the synagogue a year after the pope

    In November 2009 the Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew paid a visit to Park East. It came the year after Pope Benedict XVI became the first pope to visit an American synagogue, a visit that also took place here. Together with Dublin's Lord Mayor in 1957, the visits made the East 67th Street synagogue a destination for leaders from across the globe.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  11. 2016

    Congregants heckle Ban Ki-moon during a Holocaust Remembrance Day address

    In 2016 Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations spoke at Park East in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Members of the synagogue heckled and jeered him as he gave his address.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 93 buildings with stories in Upper East Side