Park Avenue Synagogue, New York

The Park Avenue Synagogue is one of the major Conservative congregations in the United States. It grew from modest beginnings, until it turned into one of the biggest synagogues in New York City. Its goal is to preserve the religious and cultural traditions of Conservative Judaism, and adapt it to the needs of modern Jews.

History

Also known by its Hebrew name, Agudat Yesharim, which means “the association of the righteous,” the Park Avenue synagogue of today came into existence through the merger of many synagogues. One was the Eighty-Sixth Street Temple, which was founded in 1882 by a group of German-speaking Jews; it was located in an old church at 115 East 86th Street. It merged with Agudat Yesharim in 1894 and continued to give sermons in German. In 1920, the Seventy-Second Street Temple, which itself was the product of the 1840s merger of two Lower East Side temples, Beth Israel and Bikkur Cholim, merged with Agudat Yesharim. In 1923, it changed its name to the Park Avenue Synagogue and dedicated a new building on 87th Street where it remains to this day. The last synagogue to merge with it was the Alsatian congregation of Atereth Israel which merged with the Park Avenue Synagogue in 1928.

Over time, the Park Avenue Synagogue has grown from 240 congregation members when the synagogue celebrated its 50th anniversary to approximately 1,500 families today. When the Milton Steinberg House, built in 1954 to serve the community and the religious school, was no longer large enough to meet the growing needs of the Jewish community, the Synagogue turned it into a memorial to the Jewish children who were murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust. It continues to offer daily, Shabbat, holiday and musical services as well as an early childhood center, a congregational school, a high school, adult education and several community organizations.