Temple Beth Elohim is a

Reform Reform refers to the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The modern usage of the word emerged in the late 18th century and is believed to have originated from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement, which ...

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

synagogue A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It is a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as wed ...

located at 230 Screven Street in Georgetown,

South Carolina South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...

, in the United States.

Early history

In the early 1760s, Abraham Cohen (1739–1800) and his younger brother Solomon Cohen Sr. (1757–1835), were the first

Portuguese Jews Spanish and Portuguese Jews, also called Western Sephardim, Iberian Jews, or Peninsular Jews, are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in the Iberian Peninsula during the fe ...

(

Sephardim Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendan ...

) to arrive and settle in Georgetown (Parish) District, South Carolina. Moses Cohen (1709–1762) their father, emigrated to colonial America with a small group of impoverished Portuguese Jews, with eldest son Abraham age ten, circa 1750 from London, England into Charleston. Moses Cohen was the first religious leader of the small congregation of Jews, known as

Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (, also known as K. K. Beth Elohim, or more simply Congregation Beth Elohim) is a Reform Jewish congregation and synagogue located in Charleston, South Carolina, in the United States. Having founded the congregation i ...

in Charlestown. They used old established Portuguese Rituals used in Bevis Marks, the place of worship for Sephardim in London. Abraham Cohen and a small number of (Sephardim) Portuguese Jews "worshipped in each other's homes and also at the Winyah Indigo Society" in Prince George's Parish (Georgetown District). Cohen, the eldest child of Moses Cohen, was a Vendu-master, and he "lived on Prince Street … with Free Peggy (Margaret) McWharter (b. abt. 1745, d. 1806) a

Free Person of Color In the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, free people of color (; ) were primarily people of mixed African, European, and Native American descent who were not enslaved. However, the term also applied to people born free who we ...

," owned a Blacksmith shop and also served as first United States Postmaster. Abraham Cohen, along with his sister, Esther Cohen Myers, and her husband Mordecai Myers, are buried in Beth Elohim Cemetery, which Cohen "helped to establish in 1772, twenty-eight years before he was laid to rest there". However, the grave marker for younger brother, Solomon Cohen Sr., can be found in

Chatham County, Georgia Chatham County ( ) is the easternmost county in the U.S. state of Georgia, on the state's Atlantic coast. The county seat and largest city is Savannah. One of the original counties of Georgia, Chatham County was created February 5, 1777, a ...

at Laurel Grove Cemetery. Solomon Cohen Jr. (1802–1875), his son, was the first Portuguese Jew born in Georgetown. He became a lawyer and later moved his widowed mother, Bella Moses Cohen, and wife, Miriam Gratz Moses, to

Savannah, Georgia Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia and the county seat of Chatham County, Georgia, Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the Kingdom of Great Brita ...

, , around the time of the so-called "Organ Controversy," involving the installation of a musical organ and music in Kahal Kodosh Beth Elohim, then an Orthodox synagogue in Charleston.

Mordecai Myers Mordecai Myers (November 9, 1794 – February 21, 1865) was a 19th-century American politician and landowner in Savannah, Georgia, United States. Life and career Named for his paternal grandfather, Myers was born in 1794 in South Carolina to p ...

, the husband of Esther Cohen Myers, and brother-in-law of Abraham Cohen, arrived in Georgetown (Parish) District about the same time. Abraham Cohen, Solomon Cohen Sr., and Mordecai Myers became prominent

plantation owners Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tobac ...

in the colonial economy of Indigo, and growing rice, including auctioning and ownership of enslaved Kissi (

Geechee The Gullah () are a subgroup of the African American ethnic group, who predominantly live in the Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida within the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. Their ...

) people from West Africa. For years they worshipped at home or the Winyah Indigo Society building.

History

The constitution of Congregation Beth Elohim was signed on October 30, 1904, and the synagogue building opened in 1906. Temple Beth Elohim was not organized as a place of worship until 1904, more than one hundred years after Abraham Cohen was buried in Beth Elohim cemetery in Georgetown, alongside his sister, Esther, and her husband, Mordecai Myers. The Temple Beth Elohim building and place of worship is located several blocks away from the historic Beth Elohim cemetery founded in 1772 by Abraham Cohen and others. The cemetery is directly across from the old Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, built after Emancipation.

References

*New York Public Library. 1897. Bulletin of the New York Public Library. New York: New York Public Library. P. 763. * Stephen Goldring / Malcom Woldenberg, Institute of Southern Jewish Life: Encyclopedia of Southern Jewish Communities - Georgetown, South Carolina *DaCosta, Isaac, Noble Families among the Sephardic Jews, Oxford University Press, London, 1936. * Elzas, Barnett Abraham, The Jews of South Carolina: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day, J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1905. *Pasha, Sadie Day, Author, Cohen of Georgetown County, South Carolina 1760-1960: A Family History of Low Country Secret Jews and descendants in America, the manuscript (Pasha, S. 2010) *Pasha, Sadie, Guest Speaker, Temple Beth Elohim, Georgetown, SC, May 9, 2014, "Abraham Cohen of Prince Street: A Biographical Sketch", (Pasha, S. 2010) *Rosengarten, Dale, Guest Speaker, Kaminski House, Georgetown, SC, September 12, 2014, Southern Jewish Historical Society, "Abraham Cohen of Prince Street", (Pasha, S. 2010)

External links

*
Goldring / Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life

''Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina'', College of Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina

''Southern Jewish Historical Society'', College of Charleston Library, Special Collections, Charleston, South Carolina

Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, Charleston, South Carolina
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beth Elohim (Georgetown, South Carolina) 1904 establishments in South Carolina 20th-century synagogues in the United States Buildings and structures in Georgetown, South Carolina German-American culture in South Carolina German-Jewish culture in the United States Jewish organizations established in 1904 Portuguese-American history Reform synagogues in South Carolina Sephardi Jewish culture in South Carolina Sephardi Reform Judaism Sephardi synagogues in the United States Synagogues completed in 1949 Synagogues in South Carolina