HOUSTON CONGREGATION OLDEST IN TEXAS
(Please be aware this post was written in 2003 and published at that time in the Houston Chronicle (Houston, Texas) newspaper. Some of the news in this post, therefore, may not be current. Current and future posts on this blog may revisit and update news on this and other posts on this blog. If you have questions and/or suggestions, please send Mic a note using the comment page -Don’t forget to use the orange “subscribe” button to receive new posts-Thanks, Mic)
Houston’s Congregation Beth Israel, Texas’ oldest Jewish congregation, will be celebrating it’s sesquicentennial anniversary next year. According to the Handbook of Texas the congregation can be traced to the founding of a Jewish cemetery on West Dallas Street in 1844.
Organized as an orthodox synagogue in 1854 with twenty-two members of mostly western European origin the congregation obtained a charter for the Hebrew Congregation of the City of Houston on December 28, 1859.
In 1864 the institution started a religious school and in 1873 was incorporated as the Hebrew Congregation Beth Israel. Efforts to introduce the Reform style of worship began as early as 1868 with the adoption of the minhag America custom of prayers and were completed with the adoption of the Union Prayer Book in 1898 and the Basic Principles in 1943. The latter actions transformed the congregation from an Orthodox to an American Reform Jewish congregation.
In 1874 the Franklin Avenue Temple Beth Israel was completed and a new temple at Austin Street and Holman Avenue was completed in 1925 which included the Abe M. Levy Memorial Hall. In 1945 the mausoleum at the cemetery on West Dallas was expanded, and new classrooms were added in 1950. In 1873 the congregation joined the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and in 1945 the Hebrew Congregation Beth Israel was renamed Congregation Beth Israel.
JEWISH GENEALOGY OPEN HOUSE
The Greater Houston Jewish Genealogical Society (GHJGS) invites the
community to their Second Annual Jewish Genealogy Fair. This free event will be held on Sunday October 26th from 1 to 5 p.m. in the Shlenker Wing of Congregation Beth Israel, 5600 N. Braeswood.
The Fair will be a hands-on interactive experience with attendees moving independently among eighteen stations each of which relates to a different aspect of genealogy. Visitors will learn about Houston’s fabulous resources for family research as they meet librarians from the Clayton Genealogical Library, the LDS Family History Center, the Holocaust Museum Houston , and representatives of the Houston Genealogical Forum and Texas Jewish Historical Society.
Members of the GHJGS will exhibit and explain their Jewish Herald Voice Project. This project is a newspaper extraction database of major Jewish life events including births, bris, Bar Mitzvahs, engagement, wedding, and death announcements published in the Jewish Herald Voice which began publication in 1908. Currently events through 1920 have been extracted.
Other persons and projects of interest at the Fair will be the Index to Jewish Burials; Jewish cemetery expert Lynna Kay Shuffield; Susan King founder of JewishGen.Com; Howard Margol of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies; Pete Wisner of the Polish Genealogical Society; Mark Katz demonstrating document and photo preservation and restoration; Keith Rosen of Jewish Tours; Houston’s Yiddish Vinkel and Family Tree DNA.
READER FINDS FAMILY BIBLE ON INTERNET
John Steiger of Houston recently purchased a Bible on e-Bay that belonged to his ancestors Adam Steiger and Johanna Hartman who were married in 1842 in Newark, New Jersey. The deeply tooled leather Bible dating from the 1870’s was sold by an antique dealer in Connecticut. It contains information on Steigers and other surnamed relatives from the 1840’s through the early 1900’s.
