Temple 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 ...

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

congregation and

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 1109 West Vernon Avenue, on the corner of Laroque Street, in Kinston,

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

, in the United States. Established by

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

in 1903, it is one of the oldest synagogues in North Carolina. Having started and functioning as an

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...

congregation during its first forty years, it transformed into a Reform congregation in the late 1940s.

History

Established in 1903, Tifereth Israel was the first congregation in Kinston. Originally Orthodox, the synagogue hired Rabbi Isaac Goodkovitz, who served until 1916. As more European Jews emigrated to the small, eastern North Carolina town, the congregation grew as well. By the mid-1920s more than 140 Jewish families lived in Kinston, a town with a population of only 8,000. In 1924, Tifereth Israel purchased the Second Methodist Church and converted it into a synagogue. This marked the first, formal building to be dedicated to a synagogue in Kinston. This building served the congregation through

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, until its present structure was built in 1950. A modern, brick structure with a sanctuary capable of seating more than 200 for the

High Holy Days The High Holidays also known as the High Holy Days, or Days of Awe in Judaism, more properly known as the Yamim Noraim ( he, יָמִים נוֹרָאִים, ''Yāmīm Nōrāʾīm''; "Days of Awe") #strictly, the holidays of Rosh HaShanah ("Jew ...

, and a half-dozen religious school classrooms, which was made possible through generous donations of the Brody, Stadiem, Cohen, Schechter, Fuchs, and Heilig families. During the 1950s, Rabbi Jerome Tolochko was hired by the synagogue and he moved the synagogue away from its traditional, Orthodox-style worship to a more Reform style of worship. Mixed seating, a mixed-voice choir, and an organ were introduced. Furthermore, the congregation officially changed its name to "Temple Israel". With the decline of industry and commerce to Kinston in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Jewish community also declined. Most Jewish families began to leave, and Temple Israel’s membership plummeted from 180 families in 1952 to only 40 families in 1982. By the 1990s, Temple Israel could no longer afford to support a full-time rabbi and has thus been without a rabbi for more than a decade. The synagogue also owned a

Jewish cemetery A Jewish cemetery ( he, בית עלמין ''beit almin'' or ''beit kvarot'') is a cemetery where Jews are buried in keeping with Jewish tradition. Cemeteries are referred to in several different ways in Hebrew, including ''beit kevarot'' ...

, which is currently maintained by the city of Kinston. , there were sixteen members of Temple Israel in Kinston, who met once a month for

Shabbat Shabbat (, , or ; he, שַׁבָּת, Šabbāṯ, , ) or the Sabbath (), also called Shabbos (, ) by Ashkenazim, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the week—i.e., Saturday. On this day, religious Jews remember the biblical storie ...

services and for the

. The congregation shares the building with the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Kinston.

Notable members

Brody Brothers Dry Goods Company Brody Brothers Dry Goods Company, Inc., more commonly referred to as Brody's, was an upscale fashion merchandise chain formerly headquartered in Greenville, North Carolina, with branch stores located in eastern North Carolina. The Brody family re ...

founders Leo, Jake, Sam, and Julius (“Sammy”) Brody *

Heilig-Meyers Heilig-Meyers was a retail furniture store chain founded in Goldsboro, North Carolina, in 1913 by two Lithuanian immigrants, W. A. Heilig and J. M. Meyers. Its corporate headquarters was in Richmond, Virginia. The chain grew to become th ...

retail furniture store chain co-founder, W.A. Heilig * Henry C. Pearson, an abstract artist

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Israel (Kinston, North Carolina) Jewish organizations established in 1903 Synagogues completed in 1950 Reform synagogues in North Carolina Buildings and structures in Lenoir County, North Carolina 1903 establishments in North Carolina 20th-century synagogues in the United States