Congregation Mickve Israel
| Mikveh Israel synagogue | |
|---|---|
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| Basic information | |
| Location | 20 East Gordon Street, Savannah, Georgia,  United States
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| Geographic coordinates | 32°04′16″N 81°05′39″W / 32.07104°N 81.09427°WCoordinates: 32°04′16″N 81°05′39″W / 32.07104°N 81.09427°W |
| Affiliation | Reform Judaism |
| Country | United States of America |
| Status | Active |
| Leadership | Rabbi Robert Haas |
| Website | www.mickveisrael.org |
| Architectural description | |
| Architect(s) | Henry G. Harrison |
| Architectural style | Gothic Revival |
| Groundbreaking | 1876 |
| Completed | 1878 |
| U.S. National Register of Historic Places | |
| Added to NRHP | December 24, 1980 |
| NRHP Reference no. | 80004646 |
Congregation Mickve Israel in Savannah, Georgia, is one of the oldest in the United States, as it was organized in 1735 by mostly Sephardic Jewish immigrants of Spanish-Portuguese extraction from London who arrived in the new colony in 1733. They consecrated their current synagogue, located on Monterey Square in historic Savannah, in 1878. It is a rare example of a Gothic-style synagogue. The synagogue building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. Today, the synagogue is a member of the Union for Reform Judaism.
The congregation was established in July 1735 as Kahal Kadosh Mickva Israel (the Holy Congregation, the Hope of Israel); they soon rented a building for use as a synagogue. The congregation was founded by many from a group of 42 Jews who had sailed from London aboard the William and Sarah and had arrived in Savannah on July 11, 1733, months after the colony's founding by James Oglethorpe. All but eight of the group were Spanish and Portuguese Jews, who had fled to England a decade earlier to escape the Spanish Inquisition. In London, many had been members of the Bevis Marks Synagogue. Wealthy members of London's Jewish community, then numbering 6,000, had provided financial assistance to subsidize the initial group and a second ship, which carried additional Jewish colonists to Savannah. The founders of the congregation brought with them a Sefer Torah, which is still used on special occasions at the synagogue.
On July 5, 1742, during the The War of Jenkins' Ear between Spain and the Kingdom of Great Britain, Spanish troops landed on St. Simons Island as part of their Invasion of Georgia. Most of the Sephardi Jews abandoned Savannah, fearing that if captured they would be treated as apostates and burnt at the stake. The Minis and Sheftall families, Ashkenazi Jews, were the only ones to stay. They gave up the rented synagogue building and held services informally at the home of Benjamin Sheftall.
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