Temple Emanu-El is one of the largest synagogues in the world and one of the city’s preeminent architectural and religious landmarks.  It is located in the most prestigious part of New York City, on the stretch of Fifth Avenue along Central Park at One East 65th Street.

Congregation Emanu-El

The first Jewish community in New York was a very small group of Sephardic Jews. Their ancestors fled Europe, running from the Inquisition, and settled in the Dutch colony in the northeastern part of modern-day Brazil. When Brazil fell to the Portuguese, they had to run from the Inquisition again, and in 1654, they came to New Amsterdam. But Judaism wasn’t practiced in great numbers in New York until the 1800s, when a wave of pogroms in Europe drove hundreds of thousands of German Jews to immigrate to America.

Congregation Emanu-El, New York’s oldest Reform Jewish congregation, was founded by 33 German-Jewish immigrants in the Lower East Side of New York City. Emanu-El, meaning “God is with us,” was established in 1845 as the first Reform congregation in New York and the third in the nation. 

Only 23 years later, the Congregation built the largest and most spectacular synagogue in America, a gorgeous house of worship of Moorish design at Fifth Avenue and East 43rd Street, which didn’t survive. Following the city migration patterns, the Temple finally moved to its present location on the Upper East Side. This move made quite a bold statement: the Upper East Side, a stronghold of New York’s elite Episcopalian society that was traditionally not accepting of Jews, became home to the largest synagogue in the world! Its sanctuary seats 2,500 people, more than St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the mother church of the Archdiocese of New York, which seats about 2,200. The Temple replaced one of the most prestigious Gilded Age Mansions that belonged to the undisputed leader of polite society – Mrs. Astor herself and her son, John Jacob Astor IV.

Congregation Emanu-El made a bold departure from Orthodox religious practices. Educated and affluent second-generation German-speaking Jews didn’t want to abandon Judaism. Instead, they molded their religious rituals to fit modern times, establishing the principles of Reform Judaism.

The Congregation replaced Hebrew with German and eventually English during services. Although instrumental music was not allowed in Orthodox synagogues, it became part of the worship experience. However, the most controversial reform—and the most influential—was eliminating the barrier separating men and women. 

Temple Emanu-El architecture

The massive limestone building combines elements of Byzantine, early Romanesque, and Moorish styles with Art Deco. It was completed in 1929 by the architectural firm of Kohn, Butler & Stein, with the firms of Goodhue Associates and Mayers, Murray & Phillip as consultants. 

Since its opening in 1929, Temple Emanu-El has been regarded as one of the most majestic synagogues in the world.