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Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim
Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim
Hebrew: קהל קדוש בית אלוהים
	Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim synagogue, 1938
Religion
Affiliation	Reform Judaism
Ecclesiastical or organizational status	Synagogue
Leadership	Rabbi Stephanie Alexander; Rabbi Dr. Greg Kanter; Rabbi Dr. Anthony David Holz (Emeritus);
Status	Active
Location
Location	90 Hasell Street, Charleston, South Carolina
Country	United States
	Location in South Carolina
Geographic coordinates	32°46′56″N 79°55′58″W / 32.78222°N 79.93278°W
Architecture
Architect(s)	Cyrus L. Warner
Type	Synagogue
Style	Greek Revival
General contractor	David Lopez Jr
Date established	1749 (as a congregation)
Completed	1794 (Georgian basilica); 1840 (NRHP site);
Specifications
Direction of façade	South
Materials	Brick
Website
	kkbe.org
	Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue
	U.S. National Register of Historic Places
	U.S. National Historic Landmark
NRHP reference No.	78002499
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	April 4, 1978
Designated NHL	June 19, 1980

Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (Hebrew: קהל קדוש בית אלוהים, lit. 'Holy Congregation House of God',^[3] 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 in 1749, it was later claimed to be the first Reform synagogue located in the United States.^[4] The congregation's first synagogue, in the Georgian Revival style, was built in 1793–1794 and destroyed in an 1838 fire that ravished Charleston's central business district, impacting 500 properties over approximately 150 acres (61 ha).^[5] The current architecturally significant Greek Revival synagogue located at 90 Hasell Street, completed in 1840, was designed by Cyrus L. Warner and built by enslaved African descendants owned by David Lopez Jr, a prominent slaveowner and proponent of the Confederate States of America.^[3]

The congregation is one of the oldest Jewish congregations in the United States. The congregation is nationally significant as the place where ideas resembling Reform Judaism were first evinced.^[6]

History

Before 1830, Kahal Kodesh Beth Elohim (KKBE) was a place of worship in Charleston, South Carolina for Spanish and Portuguese Jews using Portuguese rituals as done in Portugal before the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions. Commenced as an Orthodox Sephardic congregation,^[3] it later adopted a reformed religious ritual after reabsorbing a splinter group originally led by Isaac Harby. In 1824 the Reformed Society of the Israelites was founded by Portuguese Jews. It adopted ideas from the European Reform movement, and itself contributed ideas to the later, widespread American Reform movement, but was also quite different form either of them, with its own unique Reform prayer-book, the first in America.^[7]

The founding members of the KKBE were Sephardi Jews of Spanish and Portuguese origin, who arrived into Charleston from London, England to work in mercantile freight and the slave trade.^[8] While the congregation is sometimes considered to be the originator of Reform Judaism in the United States, that movement was established by European immigrants mostly from Germany later on.

Rabbi Jacob S. Raisin served as rabbi from 1915 to 1944.^[9] Rabbi Burton Padoll, who served as the synagogue's rabbi during the 1960s, was an outspoken activist for the rights of African-Americans. Rabbi Padoll was forced to resign as rabbi after prominent members of the congregation objected to his support for the civil rights movement.^[10]

Synagogue building

The present Greek Revival building is the second oldest synagogue building in the United States, and the oldest in continuous use, in the United States;^[11] in addition, it has the oldest continually operating Jewish cemetery in the United States.^[12] It is a single-story brick building, set on a raised granite foundation. The brick is stuccoed and painted white, and is marked in manner to resemble stone blocks. The portico comprises six fluted, equally spaced Doric columns, stucco over molded brick, approximating a Theseion order, supporting a gabled pediment.^[3]

The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 4, 1978, as Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue^[2] and was designated a National Historic Landmark on June 19, 1980.^[1]^[3] The Coming Street Cemetery, owned by the Congregation, is listed separately on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 2021, a monument was installed with an inscription at the site of the synagogue, to commemorate the forced human labor extracted from Black Africans owned by industrialist and slaveowner David Lopez Jr in the construction of the site; In acknowledging the past injustice, Rabbi Stephanie Alexander says "We're being honest and transparent about what has enabled us to come together and has enabled us to come to this space."^[13]

Inside the synagogue, there is a mural which includes a Jewish Confederate soldier sitting with a broken sword, an artistic depiction of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.^[14]

Notable members

Joseph Levy, a soldier^[3]
Moses Lindo, a trader^[3]
David Lopez Jr, a builder, industrialist, slave owner^[3]
Francis Salvador, a plantation owner and the first Jew elected to U.S. public office^[3]
Billy Simmons, an African-American Jew in the Antebellum period^[15]^[16]

References

^ ^a ^b "Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from the original on June 6, 2011. Retrieved March 3, 2008.
^ ^a ^b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ Matherly, Polly Ann (April 1980). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim; Congregation Beth Elohim; Beth Elohim Synagogue" (pdf). National Park Service. and Accompanying three photos, exterior and interior, from 1973 and 1977 (32 KB)
^ "Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue". National Park Service. Retrieved February 8, 2022.
^ "Hasley Map: 1838 (April 27-28) Fire". Preservation Society of Charleston. The South Carolina Historical Society. 2023. Retrieved December 23, 2023.
^ Sarna, Jonathan (2004). American Judaism: A History. Yale University Press. p. 19.
^ Harby, Isaac; Moise, Abraham; Carvalho, D. N., eds. (1830). The Sabbath Service and Miscellaneous Prayers, Adopted by the Reformed Society of Israelites, founded in Charleston, S. C., November 21, 1825. Reprinted with an introduction by Dr. Barnett A. Elzas (Block Publishing Company, New York, 1916 ed.). 44 Queen St., Charleston (SC): J.S. Burges. (From the Editor's Preface:) The Charleston Movement of 1824 was not an indigenous movement, but directly dependent upon a similar movement that had taken place in Germany a few years before, now popularly known as the Hamburg Movement. The Prayer Book of the Reformed Society of Israelites however has nothing in common with the one published for the use of the Hamburg Temple in 1819. Apart from its novelties such as the Articles of Faith, the Wedding Service, the Confirmation Service, the Service for Circumcision and for Naming a Daughter and its English Hymns, it is based upon the Portuguese Ritual then in use in Charleston.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
^ Stiefel, Barry (2012). "David Lopez Jr.: Builder, Industrialist, and Defender of the Confederacy". American Jewish Archives Journal. Retrieved February 8, 2022.
^ "Raisin, Jacob Zalman". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved December 21, 2024.
^ "Don't Whitewash Charleston's Jewish History of Racism". The Forward. June 22, 2015. Retrieved August 29, 2018.
^ Gordon, Mark W. "Rediscovering Jewish Infrastructure: 2022 Update on United States Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Synagogues", American Jewish Historical Society, November 4, 2021. Accessed February 22, 2023.
^ "Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue, Charleston County (90 Hasell St., Charleston)". National Register Properties in South Carolina listing. South Carolina Department of Archives and History. Retrieved March 23, 2008.
^ Ciapha Dennis Jr, Rickey (September 13, 2021). "SC Synagogue Remembers Enslaved Black People Who Built It". NPR. South Carolina Public Radio. Retrieved February 8, 2022.
^ "Pocket Guide to Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim and Charleston Jewish History" (PDF). Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina. Retrieved April 23, 2022.
^ O'Brien, Michael (2004). Conjectures of order: intellectual life and the American South, 1810-1860. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-6373-4. OCLC 57759012.
^ Haynes, Bruce D., 1960- (August 14, 2018). The soul of Judaism : Jews of African descent in America. New York. ISBN 978-1-4798-1123-6. OCLC 1006531808.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)