Temple Israel is a Reform congregation located at 130 Riverside Drive in Dayton, Ohio. Formed in 1850, it incorporated as "Kehillah Kodesh B'nai Yeshurun" in 1854. After meeting in rented quarters, the congregation purchased its first synagogue building, a former Baptist church at 4th and Jefferson, in 1863. Strongly influenced by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, it rapidly modernized its services, and, in 1873, was a founding member of the Union for Reform Judaism.
The congregation sold its existing building in 1893, and constructed a larger one at First and Jefferson, later severely damaged by the Great Dayton Flood of 1913. In 1927, the congregation moved to still larger, multi-purpose premises at Salem and Emerson Avenues, outside downtown Dayton, and began to use the name "Temple Israel", adding a new sanctuary to the building in 1953. Temple Israel moved to its current building in 1994.
Synagogue membership grew steadily for over 100 years, from 12 families in 1850 to 150 in the early 1900s, 200 by 1927, and 500 by 1945, peaking at 1,100 in the 1960s. By 1995, however, membership was down to 800 families.
Temple Israel has had a number of long-tenured rabbis who were influential both in the congregation and in the larger Dayton community. These have included David Lefkowitz (1900–1920), Louis Witt (1927–1947), Selwyn Ruslander (1947–1969) and P. Irving Bloom (1973–1997). , the rabbis were David M. Sofian and Karen Bodney-Halasz.
The early years, at 4th and Jefferson
What was later to become Temple Israel was originally formed as a Hebrew Society in 1850 by twelve Jewish men under the leadership of Joseph Lebensburger, a German Jew and first permanent Jewish resident of Dayton. The Society met daily for prayers in rented rooms: first above a shop in the old Dayton Bank Building (which was later the Steele High School, and has since been demolished) near Monument and Main Streets, and later in larger quarters in a building next to the Cooper building, a block south on Main Street. It also hired its first Torah reader, a "Mr. Wendel", and purchased—for $100 (today $)—a small piece of land for a cemetery on what is now Rubicon Street.
The Society incorporated as "Kehillah Kodesh B'nai Yeshurun" in 1854. It moved to larger facilities, first near First and Main Streets in 1860, and then, in 1863, to the northeast corner of 4th and Jefferson Streets. There Kehillah Kodesh B'nai Yeshurun purchased for $1,500 (today $) its first owned premises, the building of a Baptist church whose congregation was moving to Main Street.
The structure required "extensive remodeling", and Lebensburger, as building chairman, led the campaign to raise the necessary $9,000 (today $). Funds came not only from the membership but also from non-Jewish members of many local societies, including the Odd Fellows and Masons. Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise assisted B'nai Yeshurun's then–religious leader Rev. Mr. Delbanco with the dedication of what became "the seventh congregation-owned Jewish House of Worship in Ohio."
Move to Reform, and early rabbis
Influenced by Wise, the congregation implemented many reforms in its services. In 1861 they adopted Wise's Minhag America prayer book. In that same decade they added an organ, did away with the prayer shawl, and started a religious school. In the 1870s the congregation removed yahrzeit candles from the sanctuary, and added family pews and a mixed choir (men and women together). In 1873 B'nai Yeshurun was one of the first thirteen founding members of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC), now Union for Reform Judaism.
By 1889 B'nai Yeshurun had outgrown its original cemetery, and the congregation purchased on West Schantz Avenue in Oakwood. Oakwood was a "restricted community"; Jews were not allowed to reside or own stores there. According to Leonard Spialter, president of the Dayton Jewish Genealogical Society, "if you were dead, you could be buried in Oakwood, but if you were alive, you couldn’t live there". Relatives began moving those buried at the Rubicon cemetery to the new "Riverview Cemetery", including Lebensburger, who had died by this time. This process was not completed until 1967.
In its first forty years the congregation had a series of generally short-tenured religious leaders. These included Delbanco (1862–63), Moses Bauer (1863–64), L. Liebman (1864–67), Abraham Blum (1868–69), Leon Leopold (1870–72), Ben Weil (1872–76), Ephraim Fischer (1876–81), Godfrey/Gottheil Taubenhaus (later rabbi of Congregation Beth Elohim of Brooklyn, New York) (1881–85), and Israel Saenger (1885–89).