Beth Hamedrash Hagadol (1922)

The construction of Temple Beth Israel, on Charter Oak Avenue in Hartford in 1876, established a model for future urban synagogues in Connecticut. Influenced by the design of the Neue Synagoge on Oranienburger Straße (1859-1866) in Berlin, Germany and Temple Emanu-El (1868) at 43rd Street and 5th Avenue in New York, Temple Beth Israel has broad steps leading to a series of round arched doorways in a center section recessed between two projecting square towers. Other synagogues to follow this model include Congregation Tephereth Israel (1925) in New Britain and Beth Israel Synagogue (1925) in New Haven. Beth Hamedrash Hagadol, an Orthodox congregation organized on Hartford’s East Side by Eastern European immigrants in 1905, moved to the city’s North End in 1921. The following year, the congregation commissioned the Hartford architectural firm of Berenson & Moses to design a synagogue on Garden Street that was to be similar to Beth Israel in New Haven. The completed building, later known as the Garden Street Synagogue, was used by the congregation until 1962. Following the movement of Jews from the city to the suburbs, Beth Hamedrash Hagadol merged with Ateres Kneset Israel to form the United Synagogues of Greater Hartford, which moved to West Hartford in the 1960s. The Garden Street Synagogue’s Torah Ark, which remained in the building’s basement for two decades, was recently restored by the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford. The former Garden Street Synagogue is now The Greater Refuge Church of Christ.