Congregation Sha'arai Shomayim (Mobile, Alabama)

Congregation Sha'arai Shomayim is the oldest Jewish congregation in the state of Alabama and one of the oldest Reform Jewish congregations in the United States. Located in Mobile, the congregation was formally organized in 1844. The current synagogue for the congregation is the Springhill Avenue Temple.

The first permanent Jewish presence in Mobile can be documented back to 1763. Most of these early Jews were merchants and traders, having moved to Mobile after the French lost their North American possessions to Great Britain in the Treaty of Paris. Jews were not allowed to officially reside in colonial French Louisiana due to the infamous Code Noir, a decree passed by France's King Louis XIV in 1685. It is known that the code was rarely enforced in the colony, but there is no documentation of Jews residing in Mobile at that time.

The first prominent Jewish citizens of Mobile were George Davis, an Englishman from Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Dr. Solomon Mordecai from North Carolina; and Philip Phillips, an attorney from Charleston, South Carolina. Phillips was later elected to the Alabama State Legislature and then to the United States Congress. By the time of Phillips election to Congress in 1853, over fifty Jewish families were living in Mobile. Although no records survive that document the spiritual activities of Mobile's earliest Jewish citizens, on June 22, 1841 Congregation Sha'arai Shomayim purchased plots in the city's Magnolia Cemetery.

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