Congregation Beth Israel is a Reconstructionist synagogue located at 542 South New Middletown Road in Middletown Township in Delaware County, near

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Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, in the United States.

History

Formed in 1925 and granted a charter by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1929, Beth Israel is the first Jewish congregation founded in Media, the second-oldest in Delaware County, and the oldest Reconstructionist congregation in Delaware Valley.History
Synagogue website. Archived at the

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. Retrieved December 25, 2009. Media Old School

In 1935 the congregation bought the old Quaker school on Gayley Street in Media. Originally

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 ...

and led by lay members, Beth Israel allowed mixed seating in the 1940s. The congregation started hiring part-time rabbis from the

Yeshiva University Yeshiva University is a private Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City."About YU
on the Yeshiva Universi ...

Synagogue Council in 1948, and in 1957 it hired its first full-time rabbi, a Yeshiva University graduate. Jewish families became attracted to local

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synagogues in the 1960s, and demographic changes and a deteriorating building led to a significant membership decline, with the synagogue almost failing. In 1972, Beth Israel affiliated with the Reconstructionist movement, and by the 1980s it had hired its first full-time Reconstructionist rabbi, and had outgrown its building. It moved into its current building on Middletown Road in 1997. , the rabbi was Linda Potemken.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Beth Israel (Media, Pennsylvania) Religious buildings and structures in Delaware County, Pennsylvania Reconstructionist synagogues in Pennsylvania Jewish organizations established in 1925 Synagogues completed in 1997