Congregation Emanu-El of San Francisco, California is one of the two oldest Jewish congregations in California.
The first Jewish services were held in San Francisco in 1849, and major holidays were celebrated in various locations. Money was first acquired to build a permanent site in 1851, but disagreements split the Jewish community, largely along cultural lines between German Jews of Bavarian extraction and Polish Jews from what was at that tim...
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Congregation Emanu-El of San Francisco, California is one of the two oldest Jewish congregations in California.
The first Jewish services were held in San Francisco in 1849, and major holidays were celebrated in various locations. Money was first acquired to build a permanent site in 1851, but disagreements split the Jewish community, largely along cultural lines between German Jews of Bavarian extraction and Polish Jews from what was at that time the Prussian Province of Posen, which is now Poznan, Poland. A meeting on April 6, 1851 deadlocked on the appointment of a community shochet (ritual butcher), and on April 8, 1851, two congregations were formed: Congregation Emanu-El for German Jews, and Sherith Israel for Polish Jews. Emanu-El, originally Orthodox in orientation, was drawn towards the emerging Reform Movement, guided in part by a series of rabbis with impressive Reform credentials. Over the years Emanu-El became a Reform temple containing many of San Francisco's Jewish...
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