Back to top

B’nai Israel Synagogue, Rochester

Creator: 
  • Cite
  • Share
  • Correct
  • Print
Color image of B’nai Israel Synagogue and Dan Abraham Cultural Center, c.2013.

B’nai Israel Synagogue and Dan Abraham Cultural Center, c.2008.

Small Jewish communities arose at the turn of the twentieth century in several southern Minnesota market towns. In each, Jews gathered for religious purposes. But it was only in Rochester that a formal synagogue, B’nai Israel, was established. The founding of Mayo Clinic in 1905 created a need for a local congregation that could serve Jewish patients. After almost a century of holding worship services in former residences, B’nai Israel built its first synagogue building in 2008.

The first Jews to settle permanently in Rochester arrived in about 1900. Most of them were junk dealers, peddlers, and merchants. Fourteen men founded the Hebrew Congregation of Rochester, Minnesota, in 1910. The congregation incorporated in 1917 as B’nai (Sons of) Israel Synagogue. It had twenty-five member families.

Jews were among those who came to Rochester from all over the country seeking treatment at Mayo Clinic after its founding in 1905. B’nai Israel members accepted responsibility for them by comforting family members, providing kosher meals, and offering Yiddish translation services.

In 1918, B’nai Israel bought a two-story house on the corner of Fifth Street and First Avenue Northeast. Worship services were held downstairs. The rabbi and his family lived upstairs. Israel Becker was the first rabbi hired, in 1923.

An estimated twenty-five rabbis served the Rochester community over the next forty years. Congregants came from nearby Stewartville, Eyota, Chatfield, Kasson, Preston, Spring Valley, and St. Charles. In 1927, Rochester’s Jewish population was ninety-six.

During the 1920s, Mayo Clinic charged a $100 deposit for patients who were “Jews, actors, and other indigent types.” The deposit was subtracted from their final bills. B’nai Israel members provided the funds for those who could not pay upfront. The clinic withdrew the deposit requirement in 1927. It also hired a Jewish medical social worker. This took some of the burden off the local Jewish community. Mayo Clinic ended the service in 1956.

By 1944, the thirty-five member families of B’nai Israel had outgrown the house on Fifth Street. They bought the larger Knowlton house, located two blocks from the clinic. It held a seventy-two-seat synagogue and four-room religious school. It also housed chaplaincy offices and a community center.

Jewish medical staff who lived in town for short periods enlarged Rochester’s small Jewish population. While not all Rochester Jews were members of the synagogue, up to two hundred people attended High Holidays services in the 1950s at the Mayo Civic Auditorium. Official membership of B’nai Israel was forty families in 1952.

The same year, the Jewish service organization B’nai B’rith (Sons of the Covenant) International joined with B’nai Israel to create the B’nai B’rith Center of Rochester. The center served the spiritual and practical needs of Mayo Clinic’s Jewish patients and their families.

The two groups split the salary and expenses for a rabbi. They agreed that he would serve half-time as spiritual leader of the synagogue and half-time as the Jewish chaplain for Mayo Clinic. Over eight thousand visitors used the center during one documented year in the 1950s.

The 1970s brought many changes to B’nai Israel. First, in 1975, the B’nai Brith Center closed its doors when B’nai B’rith International ended its support. B’nai Israel, B’nai B’rith’s Upper Midwest district, and other Jewish agencies continued to provide chaplaincy and social services to the estimated thirty thousand Jewish patients seen annually at Mayo Clinic and local hospitals.

Second, after almost sixty-five years of leadership by Orthodox rabbis, in 1974 B’nai Israel affiliated with the liberal Reform movement of Judaism. Third, in 1977 B’nai Israel bought a former Mormon meetinghouse at 621 Second Street Southwest. The congregation then numbered ninety families.

In 2008, B’nai Israel commissioned a fifteen-thousand-square-foot facility to take the place of the old Mormon meetinghouse. Joan Soranno of HGA Architects created the award-winning, two-story building. It was Rochester’s first purpose-built synagogue. The light-filled sanctuary seated 150, and an adjacent social hall expanded seating capacity to 250.

In 2013, B’nai Israel membership was 110 families and individuals. Some lived in Albert Lea, Mankato, Owatonna, Red Wing, Winona, and other southern Minnesota cities. B’nai Israel’s mission has persisted since its founding: serving local residents and Mayo Clinic patients.

  • Cite
  • Share
  • Correct
  • Print
© Minnesota Historical Society
  • Bibliography
  • Related Resources

B’nai Israel Synagogue, Rochester, MN. “About Us—History.”
http://bnaiisraelmn.org/aboutus/history/

Epstein, Bob. “Jewish Life in Rochester, Minnesota—Professionalism, Commitment and Transiency.” American Jewish World, July 26, 1985.

HGA Architecture, Engineering, Planning. “B’nai Israel Synagogue, Rochester, Minnesota.”
http://hga.com/work/bnai-israel-synagogue#overview&/bnai-israel-synagogue-interior-1

“Know Your Services… B’nai B’rith at Rochester.” B’nai B’rith Reporter, December 1966.

“Narrator’s Script for the Story of B’nai Brith Center at Rochester, MN,” undated.
Nathan and Theresa Berman Upper Midwest Jewish Archives, University of Minnesota

Plaut, Gunther W. The Jews in Minnesota: The First Hundred Years. New York: American Jewish Historical Society, 1959.

RG1
President’s Report [B’nai Israel Congregation], typescript, December 14, 1975.
Nathan and Theresa Berman Upper Midwest Jewish Archives, University of Minnesota
Description: See, Box 52, Folder #233, Misc. Materials on Southern Minnesota.

Schloff, Linda Mack. “Overcoming Geography: Jewish Religious Life in Four Market Towns.” Minnesota History 51, no. 1 (Spring 1988): 3–14.
http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/51/v51i01p002-014.pdf

Related Images

Color image of B’nai Israel Synagogue and Dan Abraham Cultural Center, c.2013.
Color image of B’nai Israel Synagogue and Dan Abraham Cultural Center, c.2013.
Color image of the Front of B’nai Israel Synagogue and Dan Abraham Cultural Center, c.2013.
Color image of the Front of B’nai Israel Synagogue and Dan Abraham Cultural Center, c.2013.
Color image of the Description: interior of B’nai Israel Synagogue and Dan Abraham Cultural Center, c.2013.
Color image of the Description: interior of B’nai Israel Synagogue and Dan Abraham Cultural Center, c.2013.

Turning Point

The B’nai B’rith Center of Rochester, a joint project of B’nai Israel Synagogue and B’nai B’rith International to provide chaplaincy and social services to Mayo Clinic’s Jewish patients, closes in 1975 when B’nai B’rith ends its support.

Chronology

c.1900

Rochester’s first permanent Jewish residents arrive.

1910

The city’s first Jewish congregation forms, calling itself the Hebrew Congregation of Rochester, Minnesota.

1917

Fourteen men sign incorporation papers for the Hebrew Congregation, by now called B’nai Israel Synagogue.

1918

B’nai Israel purchases a house on the corner of Fifth Street and First Avenue Northeast. The house will be used for worship services and to house a rabbi and his family on the second floor.

1944

B’nai Israel purchases the Knowlton house to replace the house on Fifth Street. The synagogue has thirty-five member families.

1952

B’nai Brith officially affiliates with B’nai Israel to create the B’nai B’rith Center of Rochester. The center serves the spiritual and related needs of Mayo Clinic’s Jewish patients and their families.

1974

After almost sixty-five years of leadership by Orthodox rabbis, B’nai Israel affiliates with the Reform movement of Judaism.

1975

B’nai B’rith Center of Rochester closes after B’nai Brith terminates its support of the Mayo Clinic Jewish chaplaincy.

1977

B’nai Israel purchases a Mormon meetinghouse at 621 Second Street Southwest.

2008

The Mormon meeting house building is torn down. On the same lot, B’nai Israel erects the first purpose-built synagogue in Rochester, designed by Joan Soranno of HGA Architects.