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Congregation Emanu-El of San Francisco was officially established in 1850. Following the discovery of gold in Northern California in 1848, thousands of Jews were among the quarter of a million people making the long and arduous trip to one of the most remote regions on the continent. Although a few came overland, most of the Jewish pioneers chose the sea route: The four- or five-month long, 16,000-mile journey "around the Horn" often shortened by a land crossing of malarial swamps at Panama or Nicaragua.
The religious expression of this frontier community was decidedly liberal, and the two earliest synagogues, Emanu-El and Sherith Israel, both formed in the first week of April 1851, came to embrace Reform Judaism, the former within a decade of its founding, the latter by the turn of the century. Soon after the Civil War, Emanu-El erected the magnificent Sutter Street Temple, its twin gothic towers a prominent feature of the young city's skyline. In 1925, the congregation moved to the Lake Street location it currently occupies and built another architectural masterpiece, harmoniously blending Byzantine, Moorish, and Spanish mission styles. The domed sanctuary, influenced by the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, is one of the most noted houses of worship on the West Coast. |
