Kane Street Synagogue
236 Kane Street | also 234 Kane Street | Cobble Hill | built 1858
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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.
- 1855
The Middle Dutch Reformed Church lays the cornerstone of a Romanesque church at Kane Street and Tompkins Place
The Middle Dutch Reformed Church laid the cornerstone in 1855 and had the building put up in the early Romanesque style, then called Norman. A central entrance holds three doorways under round arches on clustered columns, with square towers of unequal size at the front corners. The church was first trimmed in brownstone, which is now covered in smooth stucco. The district report notes that Trinity German Lutheran Church acquired it in 1887.
“The synagogue at the corner of Tompkins Street was originally the Middle Dutch Reformed Church; its cornerstone was laid in 1855.”
- 1905
Congregation Baith Israel buys the former church for $30,000 and hires Israel Goldfarb, later rabbi for over fifty years
By 1904 the congregation had shrunk to 30 members and nearly failed. In 1905 it paid $30,000 for the Romanesque Revival church on Tompkins Place and Harrison Street, a street renamed Kane Street in 1928, together with a neighboring school building. That year it also hired Israel Goldfarb as cantor and teacher; he became rabbi the next year and kept the post for more than five decades. Goldfarb composed popular melodies for "Shalom Aleichem" and "Magein Avot", and membership had doubled by 1906.
“In 1905, the congregation also purchased for $30,000 its current building at Tompkins Place and Harrison Street ... by 1906 (its 50th anniversary) membership had doubled.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1913
Aaron Copland celebrates his Bar Mitzvah at Baith Israel Anshei Emes
Aaron Copland celebrated his Bar Mitzvah at the congregation in 1913. The future composer's family was deeply involved in it: his father Harris was treasurer of the Talmud Torah, helped buy the building, and was president from 1907 to 1910. Rabbi Israel Goldfarb later helped the young Copland, who wanted to study music while his father favored law. Goldfarb arranged for Aaron to pursue music for two or three years, with law as the fallback if it did not work out.
“Aaron Copland celebrated his Bar Mitzvah at Baith Israel Anshei Emes in 1913. ... Goldfarb engineered an agreement whereby Aaron would study music for two or three years…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1920
Sidney Weinberg, later head of Goldman Sachs, marries at Baith Israel Anshei Emes
Weinberg climbed from assistant porter to run Goldman Sachs from 1930 to 1969. His family had joined the synagogue back when it stood on Boerum Place. His mother Sophie served as sisterhood president in 1912 and 1913, and his father Pincus was congregation president from 1919 to 1921. All the Weinberg children attended its Sunday school and Talmud Torah.
“Sidney Weinberg, who rose from the job of assistant porter to head Goldman Sachs from 1930 to 1969, was married at Baith Israel Anshei Emes in 1920.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1988
Debra Cantor is hired as rabbi, making Baith Israel Anshei Emes the first Northeast synagogue led by a woman
The congregation had moved toward egalitarian practice for years, and in 1982 it opened services to women leading prayers and blowing the shofar. In August 1988 it hired Debra Cantor, then 33 and valedictorian of that year's class at the Jewish Theological Seminary. The Conservative movement had ordained its first woman rabbi only three years earlier. Some families left in response and formed B'nai Avraham, an Orthodox congregation in Brooklyn Heights.
“…culminated in August 1988, when Debra Cantor was hired as its first female rabbi, making it the first synagogue in the Northeastern United States to be led by a woman.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2009
Westboro Baptist Church members picket the synagogue the day before Yom Kippur
The congregation had backed LGBTQ+ members since at least the early 1990s, and in 2007 it voted to allow same-sex commitment ceremonies. On the day before Yom Kippur in 2009, members of the Westboro Baptist Church picketed the building at 236 Kane Street. They shouted antisemitic and anti-gay slogans.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
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