Baron Hirsch Synagogue
| Baron Hirsch Synagogue | |
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| Basic information | |
| Location | 400 South Yates Road Memphis, Tennessee  United States
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| Affiliation | Orthodox Judaism |
| Website | baronhirsch |
| Completed | 1988 |
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Baron Hirsch Synagogue
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| Location | 1740 Vollintine Ave., Memphis, Tennessee |
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| Built | 1950–52 and 1955–57 |
| Architect | George Awsumb |
| Architectural style | International Style |
| Part of | Vollintine Hills Historic District (#07000684) |
| MPS | Memphis MPS |
| Added to NRHP | July 11, 2007 |
The Baron Hirsch Synagogue (also Baron Hirsch Congregation), established in Memphis, Tennessee circa 1862–1864, is a flagship of American Orthodox Judaism. From modest beginnings, it underwent tremendous growth in the first half of the 20th century, emerging, in the 1950s, as the largest Orthodox congregation in North America, a position it still holds.
Its former building, an impressive International Style structure built in the 1950s, is a U.S. Historic District Contributing Property and the centerpiece of the Vollintine Hills Historic District, a cohesive collection of 78 post-World War II Minimal Traditional and ranch-style houses built around the former synagogue by members of the congregation.
The nucleus of the Jewish community in Memphis formed in the downtown area north of Adams Street commonly known as the "Pinch" or "Pinch District". The Pinch was the center of, and traditionally associated with, immigration and immigrant communities in Memphis.
Having no permanent place of worship at its initial organization in the 1860s, around 1884, a group of Jewish immigrants who wished to follow religious Orthodoxy began to pray together in rooms above various downtown Memphis stores, at private homes, and on the second floor of a modest hotel. Rabbi I. Myerowitz was the congregation's first spiritual leader, serving from 1891 to 1893.
In about 1890 or 1892, the group was chartered as the Baron Hirsch Benevolent Society, named in honor of the famed French Jewish philanthropist, Baron Moritz de Hirsch.
That same year they purchased a former African American church at 4th Street and Washington Avenue, in the Pinch, for use as a synagogue, moving in 1912. A contemporary account gives membership in 1904 as eighty-five.
The Baron Hirsch congregation continued to grow and soon tore down their old building and built a new synagogue, at a cost of $35,000 ($829,000 in current dollar terms), on the same site in 1915. The new synagogue's sanctuary could hold over 700 worshippers. Still located in the downtown Pinch district, the congregation built the Menorah Institute next to the synagogue in 1928, providing classrooms and space for the congregation's social activities. This building was razed after the congregation relocated in the 1950s.
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