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Indenture for pew # 35 of the temple, sold to Max L. Rau on February 1, 1869, signed by Lewis May, President of Emanu-El for over 25 years, and Simon H. Stern, Secretary. The pew was subsequently sold several more times over the next 60 years, all transactions are recorded on the document. Among the names signed on this document are Samuel Berliner, Lillie M. Stern, Leonard Wullack, Mark Moses, Louis M. Mack, and several others.
Temple Emanu-El was established by 33 German immigrants in 1845. These men sought to adapt their lives, including their religious practice, to the new environment. In 1844 they formed a cultural society, or Cultus Verein, for this purpose. From that society was born the first Reform congregation in the city of New York and the third in the nation.
Emanu-El's first place of worship was a rented room on the second floor of a private dwelling at the corner of Grand and Clinton Streets on the Lower East Side. Soon, however, the space became inadequate, and in 1848 Emanu-El moved to Chrystie Street, a few blocks west of its original location. A former Methodist church was purchased and transformed into a Jewish house of prayer and meeting place. In 1854, the Congregation acquired a structure at Twelfth Street near Fourth Avenue, which had once housed a Baptist church, and refurbished it as a synagogue.
Gradually the prosperity of the Congregation increased, and the dream of building a grand temple became a reality after the Civil War, in 1868. An imposing sanctuary was erected on the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty-third Street. The Temple Emanu-El is one of the finest examples of Moorish architecture in the Western world.
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