Union Temple is a Reform synagogue in Brooklyn, New York. It is the result of the merger of two nineteenth century congregations, K. K. Beth Elohim and Temple Israel.
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Founded in 1848 by German and Alsatian Jewish immigrants living in the village of Williamsburgh, K.K. Beth Elohim was the first Jewish congregation established in Brooklyn and the first on Long Island. It is a member congregation of the Union of Reform Judaism.
The congregation first worshiped in a private home on Marcy Avenue. In 1860 a former church building on South First Street was purchased and remodeled for use as a synagogue, it was afterwards used as a school offered elementary education in English and German, in both secular and religious subjects. The school closed when public education began in Brooklyn.[1]
A new synagogue was built on Keap Street in 1876. Known as the Keap Street Temple, for many years it was the largest synagogue in Brooklyn.[2] It is among the oldest synagogue buildings still standing in the United States.[3]
Temple Israel was founded in 1869, until 1872 services were held in the Y.M.C.A. building on the corner of Fulton Street and Galatin Place in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In that year the congregation purchased a former church building on Greene Avenue. Temple Israel dedicated a larger and more magnificent new building on the corner of Bedford and Lafayette Avenues in 1891.[1]
Temple Israel and K.K. Beth Elohim merged in 1921, deciding to erect a new temple in the newly fashionable location of 17 Eastern Parkway (Brooklyn), across the street are the Brooklyn Public Library, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Plans were drawn up by Arnold Brunner for a Classical temple with an adjacent eleven-story community house. The community house was erected first, and dedicated in 1929. Because of the Great Depression, the planned Temple was never built.[4] Instead, the congregation continued to worship in the Community House. During the High Holy Days the congregation worshiped at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. In 1942, the theater on the ground floor of the Community House was remodeled a sanctuary, designed after the synagogue in Essen, Germany, burned by the Nazis.[1]