Minneapolis's Jews did not establish a synagogue until 1878 although the city was incorporated in 1866. Shaarei Tov (later Temple Israel) was founded by German Jews who lived south of the downtown area near a chain of lakes. They evinced Reform practices as early as the 1880s. Although south Minneapolis had a Romanian Jewish neighborhood until the early 1950s, Eastern European Jews tended to settle on the north side of downtown. The area housed Jews from the 1880s through the 1950s. Interestingly, the same area contained public housing near the downtown section, built in the 1930s and one quarter of which was reserved for Jews, as well as mansions near the opposite end bordering the city limits. Jews of every economic stratum mixed in the public schools, Talmud Torah, and in neighborhood businesses.

The city's civic structure was tightly controlled by a group who had arrived from New England and who developed the city's industries, particularly that of flour milling. They were not hospitable to sharing power with the enormous Scandinavian population and certainly not with Jews. A few women of intellect were spared this treatment: Nina Morais Cohen, daughter of Rabbi Sabato Morais and wife of attorney Emanuel Cohen, was a founding member of the Women's City Club. She also founded the Minneapolis chapter of NCJW in 1894 and educated a cadre of women, even those of Eastern European origin.

It may be a result of this exclusion, or the long-term effects of a community unifier such as Rabbi Samuel Deinard, Lithuanian-born rabbi of Temple Israel, who attended services at Orthodox synagogues on the second day of Jewish holidays and preached in Yiddish, but the German and Eastern European Jews of Minneapolis coalesced more rapidly and created a strong infrastructure with the full panoply of Jewish institutions Chief among these was the community-sponsored Minneapolis Talmud Torah, founded in 1894 and renowned for its early embrace of teaching Ivrit be-Ivrit and the number of students who became rabbis. Beth El (Conservative) Synagogue, founded in 1921 is also an offshoot of the Talmud Torah. The community also supported an orphanage for the temporary placement of children in need, a community center, Zionist and Socialist meeting halls, numerous synagogues, loan societies, and a Hachnosses Orchim. An Orthodox day school was founded in 1944 and a non-denominational day school in the 1980s. A number of these institutions were beneficiaries of the Minneapolis Jewish Federation, founded in 1930 and representing all persuasions within the community. Synagogues were established as well. Kenesseth Israel, founded in 1891 was the first Orthodox place of worship, and Adath Jeshurun became the first Conservative one in 1907. The city had at least seven other Orthodox synagogues.