The Jewish community: William Street and after

1840s — present

The Jewish neighborhood stood a few blocks south of downtown: Jewish settlers reached the bend in the late 1840s and 1850s — the National Register nomination for the Sons of Israel Synagogue names Theo Seixas Meyer, the Wolks, Moses Livingston, Abraham Hanauer, A. Barth, Jacob Mish, Samuel and Moses Adler, Dan and David Holland, and David Pollock, tracing them to a county Jewish history — and the community organized as it grew: 125 people by 1878, a first religious organization, the Hebrew Orthodox congregation, in 1887, and in 1901 the building that still anchors its geography, the Sons of Israel Synagogue at 420 South William Street, "constructed in an area once at the heart of the city's Jewish neighborhood" and the first house of worship the community built for itself.

The eastern European wave that followed raised the count to about 1,200 people by 1912. Reform Judaism organized on 9 January 1905, when Simon Greenebaum, Sam Adler and Samuel Spiro called the meeting that founded Temple Beth-El; services began on 22 January, a lot was bought at LaSalle and Taylor, and the Taylor Street temple was dedicated on 6 March 1906, the congregation affiliating with the Union of American Hebrew Congregations by 1909. A third congregation, Sinai, was established in June 1932 as an Orthodox synagogue, dedicated its present home on 11 June 1950, and became Conservative and egalitarian in the 1980s; the first bat mitzvah in South Bend had been held at Sinai in 1943, in Gloria Wolvos's account for the Michiana Jewish Historical Society's oral histories. The associational world filled in around the congregations — a Louis Sandock lodge of B'nai B'rith from 1918, a Jewish War Veterans post from 1947 meeting at 301 South William Street — and a 1960 survey counted 805 Jewish households in the area.

In 1945 South Bend and Mishawaka leaders together established the Jewish Community Council of St. Joseph County — a county institution, founded across the city line on purpose — reorganized in 1978 as the Jewish Federation of St. Joseph Valley. The William Street geography dispersed with the century: the Sons of Israel congregation, worshipping in its last years as B'Nai Yisrael, ceased about 1993; the 1901 synagogue was listed on the National Register on 25 June 2013 and serves today, its sanctuary intact behind a storefront, as the South Bend Cubs' team shop at the ballpark. The Federation's Kurt and Tessye Simon Jewish Community Building opened in the fall of 2000 at 3202 Shalom Way, and the Federation describes its present reach as more than 1,800 Jewish people across the valley — its own current figure, printed as such.

Sources:

1. National Register of Historic Places nomination — Sons of Israel Synagogue, 420 South William Street (listed 25 June 2013) — catalog.archives.gov
2. Temple Beth-El — congregational history (organizing meeting, 9 January 1905; dedication, 6 March 1906) — tbe-southbend.org
3. Sinai Synagogue — congregational history (established June 1932; present home dedicated 11 June 1950) — sinaisouthbend.org
4. Library of Congress / American Jewish Historical Society — B'nai B'rith Louis Sandock Lodge records note (Jewish Community Council established 1945; reorganized as the Federation, 1978)
5. Jewish Federation of St. Joseph Valley — community building (opened fall 2000) and present reach — thejewishfed.org
6. Michiana Jewish Historical Society — "Telling Our Stories" oral histories (first bat mitzvah, Sinai, 1943)