Anshe Sholom B'nai Israel

Anshe Sholom B'nai Israel (Hebrew for: "People of Peace" followed by "Children of Israel") is a Modern Orthodox congregation located in the Lakeview neighborhood on the north side of Chicago, Illinois. Rabbi David Wolkenfeld is the current rabbi; he was preceded by Rabbi Asher Lopatin.

Its street address is 540 West Melrose, Chicago, Illinois 60657.

The congregation was founded in 1870 as Ohave Sholom (Lovers of Peace) by a group of families primarily from Mariampol, Lithuania. The congregation is considered to be the oldest Orthodox congregation still existing in Chicago.

Anshe Sholom Bnai Israel Congregation began its long record of service to Chicago's Jews with a fight over a hat.

One hot day in the summer of 1870, Duber (Dov Ber) Ginsburg, an immigrant from Mariampol, Lithuania, appeared for services at the Bais Medrash Hagodol synagogue wearing a straw hat, but the leaders of the shul took exception to its frivolity and threw him out. Offended, Ginsburg assembled a minyan from his old-country friends, and founded a competing shul, Ohave Sholom Mariampol, at Polk and Dearborn Streets.

Barely a year later, the Great Chicago Fire drove many homeless Jews into their neighborhood, and membership grew rapidly. In 1892, the congregation merged with the Anshe Kalvarier shul (whose building had been demolished when 12th Street, now Roosevelt Road, was widened) and adopted the name, "Anshe Sholom Congregation." In 1894, they retained their first Rabbi, Abraham Samuel Braude zt"l, who served until his death in 1907, and the shul took its place in the top rank of Chicago Jewry. It was long known unofficially as "the Mariampoler Shul" and also informally as "the Straw Hat Shul."

In 1910, two great events occurred: the congregation brought Rabbi Saul Silber zt"l to Chicago, and moved west into a new shul building at Polk and Ashland; a magnificent domed building by Chicago architect Alexander Levy. However, the Jewish community was moving farther west into the Lawndale district, and the Ashland neighborhood soon dried up. So they opened a branch on Homan Avenue and during the 1920s, sold the Ashland Avenue structure to a Greek Orthodox Christian congregation which still functions to this day. They soon built a grand new edifice at Independence and Polk. In that era, the West Side was called "Little Jerusalem," and Jewish life enjoyed a golden age of growth, vigor and prosperity. It was also at this time that Rabbi Silber helped to establish the Hebrew Theological College and served without salary as its first President, while continuing his leadership of Anshe Sholom until his death in 1946.

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