Shaarey Tphiloh is a Jewish congregation in Portland, Maine. It says it is the oldest continuously operating synagogue in Portland. The name of the synagogue literally means "Gates of Prayer" in Hebrew.
History
Founding the Shul, 1880-1910
Immigrant Jews started arriving in large numbers to Portland, Maine from the Pale of Settlement at the end of the nineteenth century. In 1873 a ritual slaughterer visited Portland to perform shehita." In the 1880s the Portland Jewish community increased to sixty families. Over the next few decades, the Jewish population grew exponentially. In 1912, the Jewish population was 2000, in 1920 it climbed to 3000. Portland was referred to as the "Jerusalem of the north" because of its religious Jewish population. In 1930 Jews were about ten percent of the city's general population. In the late 1880s two prayer congregations emerged: Shaarith Israel and Beth Midrash Hagadol from approximately 80 Jewish families. In 1890 Rabbi Chaim (Hyman) Mordechai Lasker (1864-1932) was hired as the rabbi of Sharith Israel. Rabbi Lasker came from Łomża, Poland. He had studied in Kaunas (Kovno) and received ordination from Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor. Among his achievements in Portland was the organization of Talmudic study groups that continued for years after he left the city. Rabbi Lasker left Portland for Buffalo in 1895 and he was replaced by Rabbi A. Sharshafsky. He was rabbi from 1895 to 1897. After Rabbi Lasker left his role was filed by a Lazarus Druker, a learned immigrant from The Pale who also fulfilled the ritual duties of shechita for the community. Another shul was started in 1890 on Fore St. in Portland, calling itself Beth Hamidrash Hagadol. This group, headed by Isaac Abrams, also ran a Hebrew school. In 1899 Sharith Israel brought in a new rabbi named Rabbi Solomon David Ha-Kohen Sprince (1846-1929). Rabbi Sprince was born in Mezhirichi. He studied in Krynki (Poland) and Volozhin, under misnagdim teachers. He had served as a rabbi for a short stint in Paris and was friends with Rabbi Zadoc Kahn, the chief rabbi of France. Meanwhile, in 1901 another small shul, Beth Judah, brought in a rabbi named David Feinstein, but they agreed to call Rabbi Sprince of Sharith Israel, the Chief Rabbi of Portland. Nevertheless, in 1902, Rabbi Sprince left Portland for Montreal. Following all this changeover and division in the community, an effort was made to coordinate and establish one large synagogue to represent the community as a gathering place for all. In 1900 Sharith Israel and Beth Midrash Hagadol agreed to build a new synagogue together. It became known as Shaarey Tphiloh and was built on Newbury Street.
The congregation's first building, a large, neo-Classical building, was constructed between 1901 and 1905 at 145 Newbury Street in the Old Port neighborhood of Portland. At the cornerstone dedication on September 14, 1904, Dr. Elias Caplan, a prestigious member of the congregation, declared that the community not only honored its Jewish traditions but also was meant to be patriotic to the United States, "“We are witnessing today in this great country the dawn of a new era… The institutions of this mighty republic are our institutions, its laws are our laws, its flag, the flag of the free and the brave, our flag." In 1907 the congregation hired its first Rav, Chaim Nosson Shohet, a deeply religious scholar who had served as a rabbi to Jewish communities in the Russian Empire (modern day Estonia and Lithuania).