Congregation Beth Israel (Scottsdale, Arizona) Informations

Congregation Beth Israel (Hebrew: בית ישראל‎) is a Jewish congregation located at 10460 North 56th Street in Scottsdale, Arizona. Formally incorporated in 1920, it affiliated with the Reform Judaism in 1935.

Abraham Lincoln Krohn was rabbi of Beth Israel from 1938 to 1953, and during his tenure the congregation grew from under 100 to almost 600 member families. He was succeeded by Albert Plotkin, who served for almost 40 years.

Beth Israel's original building in Downtown Phoenix, constructed in 1921–1922, is listed on both the city's historic property register and the National Register of Historic Places. After being sold in 1949, it housed churches until 2002, when the Jewish community repurchased it. In 2007 the Arizona Jewish Historical Society started a $4 million campaign to restore it and convert it into a museum.

As of 2018[update], Beth Israel was the oldest synagogue in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The senior rabbi was Stephen Kahn, the associate rabbi was Sara Mason-Barkin, and the cantor was Seth Ettinger.

Jewish settlers in Phoenix began gathering for High Holiday services as early as 1906. A formal congregation was established by Barnett E. Marks, a lawyer from Chicago, who held services in a room over Melczer's saloon, and also organized a Sunday School to provide a Jewish education for his two sons. By 1918 the congregation was calling itself "Emanuel", and holding services in English and Hebrew on the Jewish Festivals. In 1920, the congregation incorporated as "Congregation Beth Israel". Its first rabbi was David L. Liknaitz, and its first president was Charles Steinberg. Liknaitz would serve until 1924.

Services were held in a number of temporary locations. In 1915 and 1917 respectively the local chapters of the B'nai B'rith and the National Council of Jewish Women were formed. Together they purchased a church in 1921, and converted it for use as a Phoenix's first synagogue by the Phoenix Hebrew Center Association. The Association soon became defunct, and the building was taken over by the Congregation Beth Israel.

That year the congregation raised $14,000 (today $197,000) and hired the architectural firm Lescher, Kibbey and Mahoney to design and construct a synagogue building near Central Avenue and Culver Street, in Downtown Phoenix. The building, a simple, stuccoed, gable-end-to-the-street Mission Revival Style structure, was constructed in 1921–1922, and an annex added in 1930.

At the time the building was constructed, the Phoenix area had only 120 Jewish residents. The synagogue served as a cultural center for the Jewish community, including hosting communal Passover Seders, at a time when Jews faced discrimination at hotels and other places of public gathering.

During the 1920s the synagogue had difficulty keeping rabbis. Most would only stay for a few years, and one in particular was suspected of being a charlatan; "[t]he rabbi college where he claimed he attended had no record of him." A.I. Goldberg served from 1924 to 1925, Adolph Rosenberg from 1926 to 1929.

In 1930, the congregation became divided over the need for the Jewish community to hire a shochet to ritually slaughter animals for kosher meat, and over whether the synagogue should hire a Reform or Conservative rabbi. More traditional members broke away to form the Beth El Congregation, affiliated with Conservative Judaism.

That year Samuel Dodkin Hurwitz was hired as Beth Israel's rabbi. Born in Krychaw, Belarus, in 1901, his family emigrated to the United States in 1903. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1926, and was ordained at Hebrew Union College in 1929. His first pulpit, from 1929 to 1930, was Temple Emanuel in Davenport, Iowa. In 1934 he was appointed to the board of the Phoenix Public Library. In 1935 he left Beth Israel to become rabbi at Temple Beth El in Benton Harbor, Michigan.

Philip W. Jaffa, ordained at Hebrew Union College in 1928, joined as rabbi in 1935. He adopted the Reform Judaism's Union Prayer Book and its religious school curriculum, and added choir music to the services. That year much of the synagogue building was destroyed by a fire, and Jaffa's whole library was lost. The congregation re-built the structure, extensively remodeling the sanctuary, and added a religious school building/classroom annex. Jaffa would serve until 1938.

Abraham Lincoln Krohn became Beth Israel's rabbi in 1938, replacing Jaffa, who was not well. At the time, the congregation had 100 or fewer member families, and 64 children in the religious school. Born in 1893 and named after Abraham Lincoln, Krohn was one of eight children of Russian Jews who had immigrated to the United States. His first career was as a social worker, but during a chance meeting, Stephen Samuel Wise was "so impressed with Krohn's compassion, intellect and eloquence [that] he strongly urged him to consider a career in the rabbinate." Krohn entered Wise's Jewish Institute of Religion in 1926, and graduated as a rabbi in 1930. He then served as assistant rabbi of Temple Sholom in Plainfield, New Jersey, for a year, then as senior rabbi at Temple Albert in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for almost seven years, before joining Beth Israel.

Krohn was heavily involved in the community. According to Ira Morton of the Arizona Jewish Historical Society:

During Krohn's tenure the congregation began calling itself "Temple Beth Israel", and under his leadership the synagogue flourished.

During World War II, Beth Israel provided religious services for servicemen stationed at Luke Air Force Base, and hosted dances for the military personnel there. In 1942, the congregation started its Judaica library, which initially consisted of 60 works on one shelf.

By the late 1940s, the congregation had increased in size to approximately 300 families, and had outgrown its original facilities. The congregation moved to a more suburban location at Eleventh and Flower in 1949, and formalized its relationship with the Reform movement by joining the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now the Union for Reform Judaism). The Central Avenue and Culver Street building was sold to the Southern Baptist Convention, and housed the First Chinese Baptist Church until 1981, and then the Iglesia Bautista Central. By 2001 it was on the market again, and the Jewish community raised $540,000 (today $750,000) to purchase it in 2002. The building is listed on both the city's historic property register and the National Register of Historic Places.

When Krohn stepped down as rabbi in 1953 due to poor health, the congregation had grown to 538 families. Krohn had also been active in interfaith work, and in June, 1958 was named Man of the Year by the National Conference of Christians and Jews at its annual dinner. He was, however, too ill to attend, and died five months later.

By 1955, Phoenix's Jewish population had grown to over 3,000 families, and the city still had two Jewish congregations, Beth Israel and Beth El. That year, with the support of Krohn, Albert Plotkin joined Beth Israel as rabbi. Born in 1920 and raised in South Bend, Indiana, his parents were immigrants from Russia. After getting an undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame, he entered Hebrew Union College in 1943 – on academic probation, because he had taken no Hebrew at Notre Dame. He was ordained by Hebrew Union College in 1948, graduating with a Master of Hebrew Letters. Plotkin had started his rabbinic career as assistant rabbi of Temple De Hirsch in Seattle, his first pulpit after ordination. There he met his future wife Sylvia Pincus, whose family were long-time members of Temple De Hirsch. They married a year later, and shortly after moved to Spokane, Washington, where Plotkin became senior rabbi at Temple Emanuel.

During his tenure at Beth Israel, Plotkin was heavily involved in Phoenix's Jewish and non-Jewish communities. He was a strong Zionist at Hebrew Union College, at a time when the movement was unpopular there, and was later a staunch supporter of Israel. He was an advocate for civil rights, and a supporter of the arts. He founded the Jewish Studies program at Arizona State University and taught there, and volunteered for 25 years as a chaplain at Phoenix Veterans Hospital. In 1972, the National Conference of Christians and Jews awarded him the National Award for Brotherhood.

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