Home > My Ancestors > Jewish > Timeline: 1850-1949

• 1851: The Ohabei Shalom congregation moves into a building on Warren Street. There are approximately 125 Jewish families in Boston.
• 1852: The Ohabei Shalom congregation dedicates Boston's first synagogue.
• 1854: German Jews form their own temple, Temple Israel, on Pleasant Street.
• 1858: East Prussian Jews form their own temple, Die Israelitische Gemeinde Mishkan Israel.
• 1859: The Dutch congregation Beth Eil is established in the South End.
• 1861: There are nearly 1,000 Jews in Boston.
• 1863: Adath Israel opens a school that educates in both Hebrew and English.
• 1864: Nathan Strauss founds the Hebrew Benevolent Society.
• 1869: At this time, most new Jewish immigrants are from the Russian Empire: White Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Poland. Others come from Galicia in the Austria-Hungary Empire and the 'Orient': Greece, Turkey, Syria, and Morocco. Prior to 1869, Jewish immigration came primarily from Portugal and Germany.
• 1873: Establishment of Beth Abraham Congregation, the first Eastern European congregation.
• 1875: The Young Men's Hebrew Association is formed.
• 1876: Leopold Morse becomes the first Jew elected to the United States Congress from Massachusetts.
• 1887: Bernard Berenson (1865-1959) whose Lithuanian family settled in Boston's West End, graduates from Harvard, where his interest in art history was kindled.
• 1889: Leopold Morse opens the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews and Orphanage.
• 1890: Lina Hecht founds The Hebrew Industrial School in the North End. Its mission is to teach Eastern European girls how to cook and sew.
• 1891: Russian Jews found the Benoth Israel Sheltering Home to aid immigrants.
• 1892: North End butchers start a trust on kosher meats that prompts a meat strike by Jewish housewives.
• 1893: Jews from Vilna, Lithuania create an informal place of worship in the West End.
• 1895: Hungarian born Julius Rottenberg founds the 'Universal Banking House', on Salem Street, to help immigrants with economic problems.
• 1897: The Boston Council for Jewish Women is founded.

• 1900: There are approximately 40,000 Jews in Boston
• 1902: Russian born, Philip Davis, organizes the Waist-makers', Wrap-makers', and White-goods Workers' Unions.
• 1903: The Vilna Congregation is formed.
• 1906: Horace Kallen and Henry Hurwitz, both Harvard graduates, found the Harvard Menorah Society to promote Jewish culture. It becomes a center of Zionist activity in America. The Vilna Congregation purchases a Baptist church at 45 Phillips Street. Also this year the Great Chelsea Fire forces many Jews into the West End, North End, and East Cambridge.
• 1907: Evrio becomes the first successful Hebrew School in Boston.
• 1908: Federated Jewish Charities is formed.
• 1910: Jews begin moving to the South End and Lower Roxbury in large numbers.

• 1910-1920: Jews begin moving into Blue Hill Avenue, Grove Hall, and on to the Elm Hill sections of Roxbury.
• 1911: Martha Michaels Silverman becomes the first female leader of the Federation of Jewish Charities.
• 1912: The Hebrew Teachers Organization is founded.
• 1915: Eight Zionist organizations hold a week-long meeting in Boston. Louis Brandeis becomes the first Jew appointed to the United States Supreme Court.
• 1917: Beth Israel Hospital opens.
• 1918: Louis Epstein is elected as the Rabbi of Beth Hamidrash Hagadol, three years after the congregation formed the Crawford Street Synagogue in Roxbury.
• 1920: The Hebrew College is founded on 14 Crawford Street in Roxbury by the Bureau of Jewish Education in Boston.
• 1920-1940: Jews begin moving in large numbers into Weld Hill and Mattapan Square sections of Roxbury.
• 1922: Elihu Stone is made Assistant United States Attorney for Massachusetts.
• 1930: Boston banker Abraham Ratshesky is appointed ambassador to Czechoslovakia by Herbert Hoover.
• 1931: The Jewish Welfare Society is formed in response to the Depression.
• 1932: Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik arrives from Germany and becomes the foremost leader of Boston's Orthodox community.
• 1937: Nurse Frances Slanger of Poland graduates from Boston City Hospital. During World War II, she serves as a Lieutenant during the Normandy invasion where she treats over 3,000 casualties before being killed in action in 1944 becoming the first Jewish nurse killed in battle.
• 1939: Felix Frankfurter becomes the second Boston Jew appointed to the United States Supreme Court.
• 1941: The Associated Synagogues of Greater Boston brings together all branches of Judaism for the first time. Charles Wyzanski becomes the first Jewish judge of the United States District Court of Massachusetts.
• 1943: 30,000 Jews hold a demonstration in Boston Garden protesting Nazi atrocities.
• 1944: The Jewish Community Council is formed.
• 1948: Abram L. Sachar becomes the president of the newly opened Brandeis University.