Park East Synagogue
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Park East Synagogue, Congregation Zichron Ephraim
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| Location | 163 East 67th Street, New York City |
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| Coordinates | 40°46′1.0596″N 73°57′48″W / 40.766961000°N 73.96333°WCoordinates: 40°46′1.0596″N 73°57′48″W / 40.766961000°N 73.96333°W |
| Built | 1889-1890 |
| Architect | Schneider & Herter |
| Architectural style | Byzantine Revival, Moorish Revival, Romanesque Revival |
| NRHP Reference # | 83001738 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | August 18, 1983 |
| Designated NYCL | January 8, 1980 |
Park East Synagogue is located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, in New York City.
Congregation Zichron Ephraim was established by Rabbi Bernard Drachman and Jonas Weil to promote Orthodox Judaism as an alternative to Reform Judaism popular on the Upper East Side.
The architects were Schneider and Herter who designed numerous tenements on New York's Lower East Side as well as Hell's Kitchen neighborhoods. The building is similar to other synagogues built at the time which were in the Moorish Revival style that also featured a prominent Rose Window. One of the most remarkable characteristics is the asymmetrical twin towers with the eastern tower being taller (most other synagogues of the period featured twin towers of similar height). The towers are also adorned differently. Each of the towers originally were also topped by a bulbous dome which have since been removed. It is one of fewer than a hundred surviving nineteenth-century American synagogues.
Over the door way engraved in granite and written in Hebrew is a verse from Psalm 100. "Enter into His Gates with Thanksgiving and into His courts with praise."
Rabbi Drachman served as spiritual leader for fifty-one years. He died in 1945. Zev Zahavy was appointed rabbi of the synagogue on September 1, 1952. He was known as a dynamic spokesman for Orthodox Judaism. More than 200 of his sermons were reported on in the New York Times. He and his wife Edith, a noted educator, founded the Park East Day School. On March 16, 1957, Robert Briscoe, the Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin, carrying his tallis bag, visited and prayed at the synagogue on Shabbos morning.
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