The Park Avenue Synagogue ( he, אגודת ישרים, ''Agudat Yesharim'', The Association of the Righteous) is a

Conservative Jewish Conservative Judaism, known as Masorti Judaism outside North America, is a Jewish religious movement which regards the authority of ''halakha'' (Jewish law) and traditions as coming primarily from its people and community through the generat ...

congregation located at 50 East 87th Street on the

Upper East Side The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Founded in 1882, the congregation is one of the largest and most influential synagogues in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The congregation was founded in 1882 as the

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 ...

congregation, "Temple Gates of Hope", by a group of

German Jews The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...

. After several mergers, the congregation took the Hebrew name "''Agudat Yesharim''", and later petitioned the state of

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

to change the official name of the congregation to "Park Avenue Synagogue" in 1923. In 1927, the present

Moorish The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a distinct or se ...

-style building on East 87th Street was constructed. By the 1930s, the congregation changed its affiliation from

Reform Judaism Reform Judaism, also known as Liberal Judaism or Progressive Judaism, is a major Jewish denomination that emphasizes the evolving nature of Judaism, the superiority of its ethical aspects to its ceremonial ones, and belief in a continuous searc ...

to Conservative in order to accommodate the merger of the congregation with several other congregations containing large numbers of Eastern European Jews. As of July 2008, the synagogue was led by Senior Rabbi Elliot J. Cosgrove, PhD. As of 2009, Cantor

Azi Schwartz Azi Schwartz (Hebrew language, Hebrew: עזי שוורץ) is a Hazzan, ''chazzan'' (cantor), vocal performer, and recording artist. Born in Israel, he lives in New York City, where he serves as the Senior Cantor of Park Avenue Synagogue. Educat ...

joined as Senior Cantor. As of July 2013, Rabbi Neil Zuckerman and Rabbi Ethan Witkovsky joined the team. The congregation has been led by such famous rabbis as

Milton Steinberg Milton Steinberg (November 25, 1903 – March 20, 1950) was an American rabbi, philosopher, theologian and author. Life Born in Rochester, New York, he was raised with the combination of his grandparents' traditional Jewish piety and his fath ...

and Judah Nadich.

Notable members

References

External links

*
Cantor Azi Schwartz
{{Authority control Moorish Revival synagogues Synagogues in Manhattan Moorish Revival architecture in New York City Conservative synagogues in New York City Upper East Side 1882 establishments in New York (state) German-Jewish culture in New York City