English Name for Congregation

Our congregation, a new one, is referred to as “The Main Line Congregation,” which describes its loca tion in the suburbs of Philadelphia. There are some members who desire that this should be its official name. Others believe that it should have a Hebrew name, as have almost all Jewish congregations. The specific question is whether Jewish law and tradition require or do not require that a congregation have a Hebrew name or, more specifically, what we might call an ethical or spiritual name in Hebrew, such as Rodef Shalom (“Pursuers of Peace”), Oheb Shalom (“Lovers of Peace”), or Har Sinai (“Mount Sinai”). (From Rabbi Theodore H. Gordon, Merion Station, Pennsylvania)

It is remarkable how little has been written on the subject of congregational names. I know of no legal opinion on it in the entire legal literature. Even literary or scientific essays on the subject are lacking. There are a few paragraphs in the article on “Synagogue” in the Jewish Encyclopedia, a page or two in Elbogen’s History of the Liturgy. There is one essay which has considerable incidental material on the subject, that by Samuel Krauss in the Festschrift in honor of Luncz, entitled “Jerusalem.”

It seems that in Mishnaic times synagogues did not have names but were known by those of the cities in which they were located, evidently because most towns had only one synagogue and it was not necessary to distinguish it from any other except by the fact that it was in a certain town. In Jerusalem, however, there were numerous synagogues because people had come there from all over the Diaspora, and many of the synagogues were named after the various countries from which these Jews came. However, in spite of the tradition that there were many synagogues in certain other cities, we have no identifying names for them.

From medieval times we have more records, because of the writings of travelers. The custom seems to have arisen in medieval Palestine and in the oriental countries to name the synagogues after great individuals of the past: Rabbi Judah’s Synagogue, Mordecai’s, Elijah’s. In most cases there was a tradition that the great person was buried in the proximity of, or in a crypt near, the building. Therefore these synagogues were, in a sense, shrines. At all events, it is similar to the custom which became widespread among Christians of naming churches after saints.

We do not have any evidence of ethical or spiritual names such as are in use today, except in the city of Brusa in Turkey, which used the name Beth El. Krauss records, relying on Rosanes, the historian of Turkish Jewry, that that name and a similar one were used elsewhere in Turkey.

When the Sephardic Jews fled from Spain and were succeeded by successive waves of Marranos in the following centuries, their settlements along the Mediterranean were almost invariably in cities where there already were Jewish communities. Hence the congregations had to be named to distinguish one “nationality” from another. So, too, in Venice, Constantinople, and other cities, congregations were named, as in Jerusalem at the beginning of the era, according to the places from which the various immigrants came. Thus the synagogue of the “Germans,” of the “Westerners,” of the “Apulians,” and so on.

However, when the Spanish-Portuguese Jews settled in northern Europe, London, Amsterdam, and Hamburg, they did not find previously established congregations. Therefore there was no need to name their synagogues “Portuguese,” “Sargossa,” “Andalusia,” as was done around the Mediterranean. They could have gotten along without such specific names; the synagogues could be referred to by locale, as, the Hamburg synagogue, the Amsterdam synagogue, and so on. But we find that all the north-European Spanish-Portuguese congregations, as well as those founded by them in North America, were immediately given Hebrew ethical or spiritual names. Thus in Hamburg, Nevey Shalom; in Amsterdam, Talmud Torah; in London, Har Ha-Shamaim.

It may well be that Marranos, coming out of an intimate contact with Christianity, having indeed been enforced members of churches with doctrinal as well as saints’ names, felt the desire or the need for ethical names for their new congregations. At all events, they invariably chose such names. In North America the same thing occurred, with the additional fact that being far away, they were impelled to give such names as Shearith Israel (“The Remnant of Israel”) in New York, Mikveh Israel (“The Hope of Israel”) in Philadelphia, and Yeshuath Israel (“The Deliverance of Israel”) in Newport.

As later immigrants arrived, many of them simply named their synagogues after the land or district from which they had come. But the pattern set by the firstcomers, the Portuguese Jews, gradually was established, and the ethical and spiritual names became the custom, certainly in America. Some congregations used two names; the Bolton Street Synagogue in Baltimore is also Har Sinai Temple; the Eutaw Place Synagogue in Baltimore is also called Ohab Shalom. We have, as far as I know, only one temple named after a donor, and that is in Paterson, New Jersey. I suggest that your congregation select some Hebrew spiritual name (as Har Sinai or Beth Shalom) as the official name, but also use on the stationery the geographical designation Main Line Congregation. In other words, follow the pattern set by the Portuguese Jews, which has become a tradition, but for convenience use also the geographical name.