North Shore Congregation Israel is a
Reform
Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill#The Yorkshire Associati ...
synagogue
A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...
located at 1185
Sheridan Road
Sheridan Road is a major north-south street that leads from Diversey Parkway in Chicago, Illinois, north to the Illinois-Wisconsin border and beyond to Racine. Throughout most of its run, it is the easternmost north-south through street, closest ...
in
Glencoe, Illinois
Glencoe () is a lakefront village in northeastern Cook County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 8,849. Glencoe is part of Chicago's North Shore and is located within the New Trier High School District. Glenc ...
.
The congregation started in 1920 as the
North Shore branch of Sinai Congregation, and is the oldest in the Chicago North Shore suburbs. The decision to establish a separate congregation had been a subject of concerned discussion for a number of years, and was perceived as an important step in the evolution of the Jewish presence in the North Shore as a separate community. The first full-time rabbi was Harvey Wessel in 1926.
The congregation's 1964 building is located on a 19-acre lakefront parcel, formerly the location of a 1911 mansion that was designed by Chicago architect
David Adler for his uncle, hat manufacturer Charles A. Stonehill, and was later owned by Syma Cohen Busiel, the co-founder of
Lady Esther
Lady Esther was the trademark of a cosmetic manufacturing company founded by German-born Syma Cohen and her siblings in Chicago in 1913 and operated as Lady Esther Company. It was incorporated in Illinois in 1922 and became America's top selling b ...
cosmetics, before it was sold to the congregation in 1961 for $500,000. The building was designed by the well-known, Detroit-based modernist architect
Minoru Yamasaki
was an American architect, best known for designing the original World Trade Center in New York City and several other large-scale projects. Yamasaki was one of the most prominent architects of the 20th century. He and fellow architect Edward D ...
. Yamasaki composed the building as a series of arching fan vaults. The voids between the concrete shells of the fan vaults are filled with colored glass above and clear glass at eye level. Yamasaki describes his design as "a confluence of daylight and solids."
The building has been described as representative of "a period of post-war modernism that was characterized by assertive architectural gestures that had the strength and integrity to stand alone, without applied artwork or Jewish iconography."
Architecture critic
Samuel D. Gruber chose an image of the interior of Yamasaki's sanctuary for the cover of his book ''American Synagogues: A Century of Architecture and Jewish Community'', and has noted that this "dramatic, awe-inspiring space" was "hard to use by a congregation, so a smaller sanctuary was built in 1979. Together, the two connected buildings create a portrait of Jewish aspirations in the late-20th century."
In celebration of the 2018 Illinois Bicentennial, the North Shore Congregation Israel Synagogue was selected as one of the Illinois 200 Great Places
by the
American Institute of Architects
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to su ...
Illinois component (AIA Illinois).
References
External links
Official websiteArchitectural tourat Archive.org
North Shore Congregation Israel SynagogueSociety of Architectural Historians SAH ARCHIPEDIA entry on North Shore Congregation Israel Synagogue
{{Coord, 42.1502, N, 87.7585, W, source:wikidata, display=title
Synagogues in Glencoe, Illinois
Reform synagogues in Illinois
Jewish organizations established in 1920
1920 establishments in Illinois
1964 establishments in Illinois
Synagogues completed in 1964
Minoru Yamasaki buildings
Modernist architecture in Illinois