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Congregation Beth Israel ((ヘブライ語:חבורת בית ישראל)) is a Jewish congregation located at 53 Lois Street in North Adams, Massachusetts. The congregation was founded in the early 1890s as House of Israel by Eastern European Jews recently immigrated to the United States. The Chevre Chai Odom congregation broke away from House of Israel in 1905, but re-united with it in 1958, and the congregation adopted its current name in 1961. Originally Orthodox, it became Conservative in 1969 and Reform in 2000. The congregation has had five synagogue buildings since its founding, and moved to its present location in 2003. Beth Israel's first rabbis were Irving Miller (1925) and Moses Mescheloff (1936–1937). Rabbis in the 1950s and 1960s included Abraham Halbfinger and Earl Fishhaut. Jeffrey Wolfson Goldwasser joined the congregation as rabbi in 2000. Rachel Barenblat succeeded him in 2011. ==Early years== Beth Israel was founded as the House of Israel in North Adams, Massachusetts in the early 1890s.〔 Jewish immigrants first arrived in the North Adams area in 1867,〔 and by 1890 comprised twenty-five families in North Adams and five more in Adams.〔 They met to hold High Holy Days services as early as 1888, and in subsequent years held regular services in their homes, and rented halls for the High Holy Days.〔 The Jewish origins of the founders were fairly homogeneous; most came from the Minsk Province of Belarus, and of those, most came from the town of Kletsk. Because the North Adams region had few of the more assimilated Sephardi Jews or German Jews of earlier migrations to the United States, there was little conflict over maintaining traditional Orthodox services.〔 The congregation purchased a plot of land on Francis Street for $500 (today $),〔 and constructed its first building in between 1892 and 1894,〔 for $4,500 (today $).〔 The building held not only a sanctuary, but also had a ritual bath, rooms for a Talmud Torah, and quarters for a ''gabbai'' (sexton/beadle).〔 At that time the members also hired Simon Ratner as a cantor and ritual slaughterer, but had no rabbi.〔 This was common for the congregation which, until the 1960s, "although steadily having a cantor-schochet, engaged rabbis only sporadically."〔 The members formed a burial society in 1895.〔〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Congregation Beth Israel (North Adams, Massachusetts)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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