Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, founded in 1749, 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. It meets in an architecturally significant 1840 Greek Revivalsynagogue located at 90 Hasell Street in Charleston, South Carolina. It was designed by Cyrus L. Warner.
History
In 1820, the synagogue would not accept as converts any free people of color, thus rejecting the mixed-race children of Jewish men and African-American women. Before 1830 Kahal Kodesh Beth Elohim 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, it later adopted a reformed religious ritual, after reabsorbing a splinter group originally led by Isaac Harby. In 1824 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 The founding members of the KKBE were Sephardi Jews of Spanish and Portuguese descendants, who arrived into Charleston from London, England. 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 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.
Synagogue
The present Greek Revival building is the second oldest synagogue building, and the oldest in continuous use, in the United States. 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 front has a full Greek temple front, with fluted Doric columns supporting a gabled pediment. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 4, 1978, as Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue and was designated a National Historic Landmark on June 19, 1980. The Coming Street Cemetery, owned by the Congregation, is listed separately on the National Register of Historic Places.
