While the first known Jewish settler arrived in Southern Arizona in 1854, the earliest indications of Jewish religious activities in Arizona appeared in newspapers in the 1870s Newspapers in Prescott and Tucson began announcing that Jews in those communities were closing their places of business and gathering for High Holy Days services.
In 1880 Jewish pioneers Isadore, Jake and Dave Gottheif; Kuno Baum; and Albert Steinfeld assembled a list of all the Jewish citizens in Tucson and appealed to them to help form a congregation. Services were held in Alex Levin’s Park Theater Building, with Isadore and Sam Drachman leading the ritual. As a result of these efforts, Congregation B’nai Israel was begun in the home of Lionel Jacobs with Mr. Jacobs as president, Sam Drachman as vice president, L. Rosenstern as secretary and Fred Fleishman as treasurer. Although the congregation never formally chartered, the initial membership numbered 40 individuals. The small congregation held services from time to time at the Tucson home of Julius Wittelshoefer, who was believed to own a Torah, and where Joe Goldtree’s son Morris became the first bar mitzvah in the Territory. Despite the initial enthusiasm, the congregation disintegrated within the year.
In September of 1881 Samuel Black and a group of Tombstone Jewish men legally formed the first Jewish institution in the Territory – the Tombstone Hebrew Association – with the expressed purpose to hold High Holy Day services, to establish a Jewish Cemetery Association and to oversee Jewish funerals. On Jan. 7, 1883, the town’s leading Jewish men met to institute Arizona Lodge No. 337, Independent Order of B’nai B’rith.
In 1884 the Jewish women of Tucson formed the Hebrew Ladies Benevolent Society, largely due to the efforts of Minna Czerwinsky. Members in the organization included President Minna (Mrs. Toby) Czerwinsky; Vice President Eva (Mrs. Jacob) Mansfeld and her sister, Gertrude (Mrs. William) Florsheim, secretary; and Julia (Mrs. William) Zeckendorf, treasurer. The purpose of the society’s 21 members was “aiding the needy in times of distress.”
In 1886 the society received a donation of land at the edge of the village of Tucson from prominent merchant and land developer Edward Nye Fish. Secretary Eva Mansfeld registered the land deed for $1 in trust for the building of a Jewish house of worship.
In 1900 Therese Marx Ferrin spearheaded the drive to build a permanent home for the Jewish community and to acquire land for a Jewish cemetery. Rabbi Martin Zeilonka visited Tucson in 1904, on behalf of the Cincinnati-based Union of American Hebrew Congregations, and encouraged the congregation to formulate a plan for the construction of a permanent home.
On March 2, 1904, a meeting was held at the home of Mrs. L. Rosenstern for the purpose of re-energizing the Jewish community. At that meeting the Hebrew Ladies Benevolent Society changed their name to the Hebrew Ladies’ Aid Society, and the organization took on the additional charge of funding a
permanent synagogue building for the Jews of Tucson.
In October of 1905 Mrs. Joseph Ferrin hosted a meeting of local community leaders for the purpose of raising funds for a synagogue building. Aided by her daughter, Clara, Therese wrote letters and spoke to the townspeople about monetary donations. By December of 1908 more than 65 men and their families from as far away as Globe and Nogales, representing both Jews and non-Jews, had pledged funding for the building.
Five years later 142 Jews were listed as living in Tucson, the ladies organization had reorganized yet again (this time with prominent Jewish men joining the officers’ positions), and the
new organization Emanuel Temple Association (later changed to Temple Emanu-El) was formed. The group had a building fund of $2,500, a plot of land and an architect hired. Building plans were accepted in April of 1910, as was a loan to cover the remaining cost of $4,512. Masons from Lodge 4 Tucson laid the cornerstone of the first synagogue building in Arizona on June 20, 1910.
The Temple opened on Oct. 3, 1910, the eve of Rosh Hashanah, with Rabbi Dr. E.M. Chapman from Albuquerque, NM, officiating at the dedication and services. Invitations to attend the dedication and services were extended via the local press to the entire community, with a promise that the services would be mostly in English with very little Hebrew.
Soon after the synagogue was built, Sunday school classes were initiated. Clara Ferrin and her sister Hattie, both University of Arizona graduates, served as teachers.
As with other western Jewish congregations, services were held at various times, including Sunday mornings. Thus the building became known in the Tucson community as the Jewish church. By 1914 services in the synagogue were also held on Friday night with 50 to 80 people attending the lay-led services.
In 1926 Rabbi Ydel Dow was brought to Tucson from El Paso by a group of more traditional Jews who were uncomfortable with the Reform, primarily English services, held at Temple Emanu-El. The Arizona Daily Star reported that Rabbi Dow would conduct modern Orthodox services at the temple, he would start a Hebrew school, and, because his flock was small, he would supplement his salary with commercial pursuits – a kosher delicatessen and grocery store. His stay in Tucson was short-lived as the rabbi and his family moved to Phoenix within the year.
In 1930 a group of Temple Emanu-El’s more conservative congregants started one of the first Conservative congregations in Arizona, Congregation Anshei Israel. For many years the group held services in the temple and in a small house two doors north of the synagogue building donated to Temple Emanu-El by the Goldtree family. In December of 1946 the Conservative congregation moved into a newly built synagogue at 1801 E. Sixth St. in Tucson.
The Temple Emanu-El congregation struggled financially through the Great Depression of the 1930s and the war years of the ’40s. Temple Emanu-El Sisterhood’s notes for the period show the congregation with few funds to maintain or repair the synagogue. In the late 1940s Temple Emanu-El briefly shared the sanctuary space with yet another congregation as the first Orthodox congregation in Southern Arizona was formed.
From 1910-1924 a succession of rabbis served the Temple Emanu-El congregation; they included Rabbi Dr. Benjamin 4533-2 Cohen (professor of Old Testament at University of Dubuque, IA) and Rabbi Dr. Chapman, and Rabbis Belchman, Ellinger, Levi, Freed and Freehof. In 1924 with no rabbi available, Max Lisitzky conducted the High Holy Days Services. Finally in 1930 the first permanent rabbi, Rabbi Moise Bergman, was installed. However, by 1934 Rabbi Bergman was replaced by Rabbi Joseph Stolz for the High Holy Days. From 1935 to 1937 Rabbi William Rosenblatt led the congregation. In 1937 Rabbi Hyman Iola assumed the role of spiritual leader. Rabbi Iola would die a premature death at the age of 39 in October of 1941. Rabbi Joseph Gumbiner of Reno, NV, was selected to lead the congregation from late 1941 to 1947. In May of 1947 Rabbi Albert T. Bilgray was hired as the last rabbi to lead the congregation in its original building on South Stone Avenue.
Toward the end of 1944 Temple Emanu-El had 101 paid members and for the first time plans were laid to construct a new house of worship to be built in the eastern suburbs of Tucson. Land was purchased at 225 N. Country Club Road and construction began on the auditorium, the first of five buildings to be erected.
Today Temple Emanu-El is joined community-wide by no less than 14 other Jewish houses of worship. The first synagogue building in Arizona has been historically restored and is the home of the Jewish History Museum.
Eileen R. Warshaw, Ph.D., is the executive director of the Jewish History Museum in Tucson.
