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What a forgotten synagogue dedication in 1825 Philadelphia can teach us today
On a winter morning in 1825, Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia opened its doors for a consecration few in the city would forget.
The sanctuary filled not only with Jews but with the city’s civic and religious leaders. Bishop William White, the Episcopal bishop of Pennsylvania, was there. So too were the chief justice and associate judges of the state Supreme Court, along with ministers from other Christian churches and “many other distinguished citizens.”
The newspaper that covered the event could hardly contain its admiration. It called the ceremony “one of the most gratifying spectacles we have ever witnessed,” praising it as evidence of “the happy equality of our religious rights, and the prevailing harmony among our religious sects.”
For Europeans in attendance, the sight was almost inconceivable. They remarked that such a scene could not be witnessed “in any other part of the world” — Jews worshiping openly, honored by civic leaders, regarded as full equals. They urged that the moment be noticed abroad “for the instruction and edification of Europe.”
This long-forgotten consecration reveals something about Jewish life in America that is too often overlooked. Alongside well-known stories of antisemitism and exclusion, there have long been moments when Jewish life was welcomed as part of the civic square — when synagogue dedications became community milestones, not private affairs.
Just three years earlier, when Mikveh Israel laid the cornerstone for its building, its members placed into the foundation a copy of the U.S. Constitution, the constitutions of several states, and American coinage. Embedding the nation’s founding charter into the walls of a synagogue was both symbolic and aspirational.
In Europe, the picture was far more precarious. In Wiesbaden in 1826, Jews converted a garden hall into a synagogue. The community’s rabbi, Salomon Herxheimer, preached a sermon heard by neighbors “without distinction of worship.” Yet this was a fragile moment of recognition. For centuries, Wiesbaden’s Jews had lived as Schutzjuden — “protected Jews” — dependent on the goodwill of local nobles, barred from land ownership, and restricted in their trades. Only in 1819 were they granted theoretical freedom of commerce, and even then, their rights remained uncertain.
Similar stories unfolded later in Munich in 1869, where the King of Bavaria donated land for a synagogue, or in Berlin in 1866, where thousands, including Otto von Bismarck, gathered in a new sanctuary that newspapers as far away as Australia described with awe. These were real milestones, but they were fragile. Within living memory, those very synagogues would be destroyed on Kristallnacht in 1938.
The contrast is telling. In Philadelphia, non-Jews filled a synagogue in 1825 to celebrate Jews as civic equals. In Central Europe, recognition also came, but less often — and it was never secure.
Jewish history is often told as a story of persecution — expulsions, pogroms, restrictions. That history is real, but it is not the whole story. There have also been times, often little remembered, when Jews were embraced as neighbors and citizens. Ancient Judaism was visible far beyond the Land of Israel — in places like Adiabene (in northern Iraq) and Himyar (in Yemen) — and its theology helped shape the rise of both Christianity and Islam. In medieval Spain, convivencia — imperfect but real — allowed Jewish culture to flourish alongside Muslim and Christian communities. For generations in small towns across America, non-Jews sometimes contributed money, labor, or land to help build synagogues.
These histories matter because they remind us that belonging is never preordained. It is chosen in every generation — and it is possible.
Today, that lesson feels urgent. Antisemitism is again on the rise, from violent attacks like the one on Yom Kippur in Manchester to the spread of conspiracy theories online. Debates over Zionism and the future of Diaspora life have also become more polarized, often framed in absolutes: either Jews can only be safe in a sovereign state, or Diaspora life is doomed to fade away.
The 1825 consecration in Philadelphia tells another story. It shows that Jewish life in the Diaspora has not only survived but, especially in places like the United States, thrived in public — long embraced as part of the civic fabric. It also shows how precious those moments can be: roots of belonging that must be tended, not assumed.
As Europeans present that day observed, America’s pluralism was something worth sharing with the world. Nearly two centuries later, the challenge remains the same. Do we remember these paths of belonging, or do we forget them and leave only the stories of hatred to define our past?
I first began asking these questions while researching small-town Jewish communities in Ohio and New York. In many of those places, the synagogues are gone and the Jewish population has dwindled, yet I found records of interfaith choirs singing, neighbors contributing to building funds, and civic leaders marching alongside rabbis.
Those memories could easily vanish. In Lancaster, Ohio, my hometown, the synagogue closed in 1993, its building later sold. Yet the remaining members created a Jewish book fund that allowed me, years later, to discover a volume of Jewish learning in the local library — a spark that shaped my own path into Judaism.
Who tells these stories when the buildings are gone and the communities have disappeared? Who remembers the moments of belonging as well as the moments of exclusion?
The consecration of Mikveh Israel in 1825 was, for its witnesses, proof that something remarkable was possible: Jews and non-Jews together, celebrating equality, showing Europe another way. We should remember that moment not as a quaint curiosity but as a challenge. Belonging is not guaranteed. It must be chosen in each generation, in every place.
The people who filled that sanctuary in 1825 knew this. They saw in Philadelphia something they believed could not be found elsewhere — a vision of belonging worth teaching the world.
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Islamic Group CAIR’s Lawsuit Against University to Block Antisemitism Course Prompts Derision
People walk on the campus of Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois, US, April 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Vincent Alban
Northwestern University in Illinois is being sued for teaching its students and staff not to indulge or promote antisemitism, according to a new lawsuit filed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization that has been scrutinized by US authorities over alleged ties to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
The action comes several weeks after the university paused course enrollment for an unspecified number of students who refused to participate in anti-discrimination seminars which emphasized antisemitism prevention. In a statement to The Algemeiner, Northwestern said the students had advanced notice that their declining to complete the course, as well as other “mandatory student trainings,” in a manner consistent with “the policy on Discrimination, Harassment, and Sexual Misconduct,” would precipitate “action, including a registration hold.”
CAIR, acting on behalf of the Northwestern Graduate Workers for Palestine (GW4P) group, argues that the course violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and accuses Northwestern University of holding it as a “pretense” for censoring “expressions of Palestinian identity, culture, and advocacy for self-determination.”
The argument castigates a training video featured in the course while appearing to suggest that the behavior perpetrated by anti-Israel activists that Jewish civil rights groups have aimed to stop — such as beating up Jewish students, calling for their deaths, and advocating the destruction of their ancient homeland by terrorists — is inherent to both Palestinian and Arab culture.
“Northwestern coerced many of its students into … watching the JUF video by placing a hold on the registration of students who did not,” the suit states, disparaging the group which produced the video, Jewish United Fund, as being founded to promote censorship. “These policies and practices discriminate against the university’s Palestinian and other Arab students by branding their ethnic and religious identities, cultures, and advocacy for the rights of their national group as antisemitic and subject to discipline.”
On Monday Jewish civil rights advocates said that CAIR’s lawsuit is meritless, arguing it undermines the spirit of the Civil Rights Act.
“CAIR’s lawsuit is not a civil rights case. On the contrary, it’s an attack on civil rights enforcement,” said Lisa Fields, national chair of Coalition Against Antisemitism at Northwestern (CAAN) and parent of a Northwestern student. “Northwestern’s antisemitism training was developed to protect Jewish students after years of escalating harassment. The complaint – which argues that teaching students about antisemitism violates the Civil Rights Act – illustrates how litigation is being used to intimidate universities into silence.”
She added, “This is precisely why Northwestern needs independent federal oversight. Jewish students deserve safety and equal protection, not legal challenges that undermine the fight against antisemitism.”
“The Council on American-Islamic Relations has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the Graduate Workers for Palestine at Northwestern University, which alleges that mandatory antisemitism training constitutes a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” said StopAntisemitism, a civil rights nonprofit. “We wish we were kidding.”
CAIR’s activity in the US has prompted a storm of controversy, as previously reported by The Algemeiner. In September, US Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) exposed materials which CAIR distributes in its local activism — notably its “American Jews and Political Power” course — to spread its beliefs. Some of it attempts to revise the history of Sharia law, which severely restricts the rights of women and is opposed to other core features of liberal societies.
Additionally, since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, CAIR’s chapter in Philadelphia has lobbied the state government to enact anti-Israel policies and accused Gov. Josh Shapiro of ignoring the plight of Palestinians. In a 2023 speech following Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, CAIR’s national executive director, Nihad Awad, said he was “happy to see” Palestinians “breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land.”
Northwestern University’s handling of antisemitism after Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion of Israel continues to be investigated by the federal government, which recently impounded $790 million worth of taxpayer funds previously appropriated to it, for potential civil rights violations. In response to public concern, Northwestern earlier this year issued a report detailing its enactment of a checklist of policies it said has meaningfully addressed campus antisemitism.
“The university administration took this criticism to heart and spent much of last summer revising our rules and policies to make our university safe for all of our students, regardless of their religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, or political viewpoint,” the university said. “Among the updated policies is our Demonstration Policy, which includes new requirements and guidance on how, when, and where members of the community may protest or otherwise engage in expressive activity.”
Northwestern added that it adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, a reference tool which aids officials in determining what constitutes antisemitism, and instituted the “mandatory antisemitism training” sessions for “all students, faculty, and staff” that CAIR aims to abolish.
Jewish Northwestern students continue to report experiencing antisemitism at alarming rates. According to a Spring Campus Poll conducted by The Daily Northwestern, the school’s official campus newspaper, 58 percent of Jewish students reported being subjected to antisemitism or knowing someone who has. An even higher 63.1 percent said antisemitism remains a “somewhat or very serious problem.”
At the time, Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), a coalition of hundreds of organizations that fight anti-Jewish bigotry around the world, charged that the results show that the university has more to do to establish equality for all students.
“Yes, the university has reformed policies, implemented trainings, and adopted new definitions. It has pledged transparency and accountability — and some of those measures are meaningful,” the organization said. “But the reality remains: Jewish students continue to feel unsafe, and a majority still see antisemitism as a serious, unresolved issue.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Muslim Groups Call on US Lawmakers to Condemn Jewish Rep. Randy Fine for ‘Islamophobic Attack’ on Mamdani
Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) leaves the US Capitol after the last votes of the week on Sept. 4, 2025. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
A coalition of Muslim organizations across New York has called on the state’s congressional delegation to take a public stand against what it described as “rising Islamophobia” in the US Congress, focusing on comments made by Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) against New York city mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
In a letter sent on Oct. 16 to all 28 members of New York’s congressional delegation, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the groups accused Fine of a “racist and Islamophobic attack” on Mamdani, who currently serves in the New York State Assembly. Fine, a Jewish Republican who represents a district in Florida, referred to Mamdani on X as “little more than a Muslim terrorist” and said he should be “deported to the Ugandan s–thole he came from.”
The letter, signed by organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Emgage Action NY Metro, and Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), called for Fine’s condemnation, censure, and removal from committee assignments.
In the 2000s, CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. Politico noted in 2010 that “US District Court Judge Jorge Solis found that the government presented ‘ample evidence to establish the association’” of CAIR with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
The groups urged both political parties to reaffirm that “anti-Muslim, anti-African hate has no place in Congress.”
“This rhetoric is not only Islamophobic and xenophobic but unmistakably anti-Black,” the letter said, arguing that Fine’s comments echoed “colonial language once used to dehumanize African and immigrant communities.”
Mamdani, who has made anti-Israel activism a cornerstone of his political career, has alarmed the Jewish community in New York City by falsely accusing Israel of “genocide” in Gaza, refusing to recognize the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, and defending the phrase “globalize the intifada” — which has been widely interpreted as a call for terrorism against Jews and Israelis around the world — before walking back his defense of the controversial slogan. The Democratic mayoral nominee has maintained a comfortable lead in the race, according to recent polling, and is expected to win the general election next month.
The Muslim groups tied Fine’s statements against Mamdani, who was born in Uganda, to what they described as a broader pattern of Islamophobic hate on Capitol Hill. The letter cited comments by several lawmakers, including Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), who said, “I think we should kill them … Everybody in Hamas” when asked about the deaths of Palestinian children in Gaza, referring to the terrorist group that has ruled the enclave for nearly two decades. The letter also cited Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), who recently called to “ban Sharia law” in the US. The organizations compared such proposals to banning Catholic canon law or Jewish Halacha, framing them as a form of religious discrimination. Critics counter that Sharia, or Islamic law, is incompatible with Western values and that Islamist extremists ultimately aim for the system to supersede the US Constitution.
According to the letter, New York’s Muslims make up about roughly 10 percent of the state’s population and are integral to its economy, public services, and schools. “We will not be silenced or scapegoated,” the groups wrote, warning that legislative measures conflating Palestinian advocacy with antisemitism “threaten civil rights and free speech.”
The coalition concluded by appealing to New York lawmakers to “meet this moment with moral clarity,” defending Muslim leaders under attack and rejecting the “weaponization of Islamophobia.”
“For generations,” they wrote, “New York’s congressional delegation has served as a moral compass for the nation. That tradition must continue.”
Since entering Congress, Fine has established himself as an outspoken advocate for Israel and critic of Islam. Earlier this month, Fine posted online that “Fear of Islam is rational. Islamophobia is a lie.” He also wrote that Islam is not “compatible with American values.” He has argued that radical Islam poses an existential threat to the United States and Jewish Americans in particular.
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As Greenpoint’s Jewish community grows, so does this shul’s Hebrew school
Greenpoint, Brooklyn is known for many things: its extensive waterfront, a tight-knit Polish community and a vibrant arts scene.
One thing it’s not known for: a thriving Jewish community. But that’s rapidly changing.
The Greenpoint Shul — North Brooklyn’s only non-Haredi, brick-and-mortar synagogue — is today home to some 100 member families. That’s twice as many members as just 16 months ago, according to Rabbi Isaiah Rothstein, who has led the community since August 2024.
The congregation is looking to future generations, too: This school year, the Orthodox congregation officially added a Hebrew school serving some 30 children in grades kindergarten through 8. The school provides Jewish families an alternative to the only other option in the area, the Hebrew school that’s run by Chabad of North Brooklyn in nearby Williamsburg.
“I know the power and importance of having a youth department and it being a core pillar of building a thriving and growing community,” said Rothstein, who was previously the youth director at Young Israel of Stamford, Connecticut before assuming the helm of the Greenpoint Shul.
The Hebrew school was initially founded in 2019 by Yoni Kretzmer and his wife, artist Avital Burg, who are members of the synagogue and the parents of three children ages 8, 4 and 2. For five years, the school operated independently but borrowed the space inside the synagogue. As of this academic year, the school was officially “adopted” by the shul, which did not have a Hebrew school of its own.
“We saw that there’s nothing happening in North Brooklyn,” Yoni Kretzmer, who moved to Greenpoint from Israel with his wife in 2015, said of the local Jewish education scene. “So that was basically it — we started because we thought it was possible.”
Six years later, Kretzmer is now employed by the Greenpoint Shul, where one benefit he has seen so far is getting to exchange ideas with the rabbinic leadership team. He no longer has to independently collect tuition from parents, and he can provide students with supplies and snacks directly purchased from the synagogue budget.
“The way that we can present it now is as part of a much larger structure,” Kretzmer said. “When people [are] joining, they’re not only feeling that we’re using the shul, but that they’re part of a community center in the fullest meaning of the word.”
He added, “Now I can really be a teacher and the organizer, but I don’t have to be the accountant.”
With a focus on Torah and art, the school opened with about a dozen students — split into two groups, with Kretzmer teaching the older students, and Burg teaching the younger students — and grew via word of mouth. “It was mainly parents who brought other parents,” Kretzmer said. “So the connections were kind of within the neighborhood, of people who knew each other.”
The Greenpoint Shul was founded in 1886 and moved into its location at 108 Noble St. in 1904. (Courtesy Daphne Lasky)
The new school bucks multiple trends. Across the country, supplementary Jewish school enrollment is down by nearly half over the last two decades, a recent study found, and many of those that remain have reduced the number of days they operate. The Greenpoint Shul’s school holds classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, though different children attend each day.
While enrollment declined early in the pandemic, “once it was deemed safe to return, then it really started growing,” said Kretzmer, who is now the youth director at Greenpoint Shul.
One recent arrival is Andrew Altfest, who moved to nearby Williamsburg in 2014 and enrolled his 5-year-old son, Alden, last year.
“We really like the values that are being taught,” said Altfest, a financial advisor who grew up Reform. “Those values, they range from everything: learning Torah stories, Jewish culture, ethics. And we value the diversity of the families of the kids that are there.”
Like so many parts of Brooklyn, Greenpoint has seen a wave of gentrification and development in recent decades. In Greenpoint, this change was spurred, in part, by a massive rezoning along the neighborhood’s once-derelict waterfront in 2005. While there is no reliable data on the neighborhood’s Jewish population — studies often lump Greenpoint with Williamsburg, which is home to a sizable Hasidic community — locals believe the number of Jews in Greenpoint has grown in recent years.
“Greenpoint is not a famously Jewish neighborhood in New York City,” said Greenpoint Shul president Daphne Lasky. “I think there are other things other than Jewish community that sometimes draw people to Greenpoint: the waterfront location, the scale of the buildings. There’s so much creative energy in the neighborhood. But then you end up with Jewish families who have those interests and they also want to come together around their Jewish life as well.”
As such, other Jewish institutions have grown to meet the needs of the area’s Jewish community. The Neighborhood: An Urban Center for Jewish Life, a Jewish cultural and events hub funded by UJA-Federartion of New York, was founded in 2022 expressly to serve Jews in both central and northern Brooklyn.
“We feel there’s a really significant demand,” said Neighborhood director Rebecca Guber. “Part of it, which is kind of hard to wrap your head around, is that in North Brooklyn, the only Jewish infrastructure is Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox, and that’s just not serving all members of the community.”
For now, at least, The Neighborhood does not have a physical space.
The Greenpoint Shul, meanwhile, has a long history in the neighborhood. Founded at the turn of the last century by German-Jewish immigrants as Congregation Ahavas Israel, the synagogue is in a landmarked Romanesque Revival building at 108 Noble Street whose cornerstone was laid in 1903. Today’s Greenpoint Shul is the result of multiple mergers between two neighboring Reform congregations and one Orthodox synagogue. Its prayer service is Orthodox; women sit upstairs in the balcony while men sit downstairs for prayer services. But the community is multicultural, multiracial and welcoming of all backgrounds, including many members who have recently converted to Judaism. While Orthodox families are likely to send their children to day schools and yeshivas, the Hebrew school is geared toward “children of all ages and backgrounds,” according to its web site.
“The congregation has gone through a lot of changes and growth — and shrinking and growing again — over the last 140 years,” Lasky said. “In particular, in the last 25 years or so, as Greenpoint has had its own renaissance as a neighborhood, there’s been more and more families moving into the neighborhood that need Jewish education for their children and Jewish connection for their children.”
Because of the new, formal relationship between the school and the shul, Rothstein said he’s already seen interest from prospective parents who would like to enroll their kids in the program next year. But the growth of a community isn’t just measured in sheer numbers — Rothstein added that, as a result of the Hebrew school, youth attendance at recent Sukkot and holiday events increased this year.
“We’ve seen, already, crossover, where it’s a pipeline to deeper engagement,” Rothstein said.
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