Establishing Our Congregation

On February 25, 1855, Jacob Herzog, a German merchant who had settled in Lancaster about a decade earlier and operated a store on the west side of North Queen Street, convened a meeting to establish a formal Jewish congregation in Lancaster.  Lancaster’s colonial Jewish community had died out, but by the mid-point of the 19th century numbers had grown and a group of 21 men wanted Lancaster to have a formal Jewish congregation.

On March 4, 1855 this group met again and chose a name for their new congregation: Shaarai Shomayim (Gates of Heaven.)

Services, using a Torah owned by Jacob Herzog were conducted in Herzog’s home on what is now Howard Avenue.  By October 1855, the congregation had hired a man to be both cantor and teacher for $150 per year.  Twenty-three dollars was collected and given to Herzog to pay for formal chartering expenses.

On November 18, 1856, Congregation Shaarai Shomayim received its charter from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  By the mid-1860s, the congregation, which had been making do with temporary synagogues, wanted its own permanent home.  On September 13, 1867, Shaarai Shomayim dedicated its first permanent spiritual home, a small single-story building at the corner of East Orange and North Christian Streets, where the Lancaster Bar Association Headquarters now stands.  That building, which was generally known by both members and the community as the Orange Street Synagogue, remained in use until the congregation moved to its present location in 1896.

Continue reading, Dedication of Duke Street Temple; or view the previous section, Colonial Roots.