Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim

Before 1830, Kahal Kodesh Beth Elohim (KKBE) was a place of worship in Charleston, South Carolina for Spanish and Portuguese Jews using Portuguese rituals as done in Portugal before the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions. Commenced as an Orthodox Sephardic congregation, it later adopted a reformed religious ritual after reabsorbing a splinter group originally led by Isaac Harby. In 1824 the Reformed Society of the Israelites was founded by Portuguese Jews. It adopted ideas from the European Reform movement, and itself contributed ideas to the later, widespread American Reform movement, but was also quite different form either of them, with its own unique Reform prayer-book, the first in America.{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/sabbathservicemi00refo |title=The Sabbath Service and Miscellaneous Prayers, Adopted by the Reformed Society of Israelites, founded in Charleston, S. C., November 21, 1825 |publisher=J.S. Burges |others=Reprinted with an introduction by Dr. Barnett A. Elzas |year=1830 |editor-last=Harby |editor-first=Isaac |edition=Block Publishing Company, New York, 1916 |location=44 Queen St., Charleston (SC) |quote=(From the Editor's Preface:) The Charleston Movement of 1824 was not an indigenous movement, but directly dependent upon a similar movement that had taken place in Germany a few years before, now popularly known as the Hamburg Movement. The Prayer Book of the Reformed Society of Israelites however has nothing in common with the one published for the use of the Hamburg Temple in 1819. Apart from its novelties such as the Articles of Faith, the Wedding Service, the Confirmation Service, the Service for Circumcision and for Naming a Daughter and its English Hymns, it is based upon the Portuguese Ritual then in use in Charleston. |editor-last2=Moise |editor-first2=Abraham |editor-last3=Carvalho |editor-first3=D. N.}}

The founding members of the KKBE were Sephardi Jews of Spanish and Portuguese origin, who arrived into Charleston from London, England to work in mercantile freight and the slave trade.{{cite journal |last1=Stiefel |first1=Barry |title=David Lopez Jr.: Builder, Industrialist, and Defender of the Confederacy |journal=American Jewish Archives Journal |date=2012 |url=https://www.academia.edu/8022275 |access-date=8 February 2022}} While the congregation is sometimes considered to be the originator of Reform Judaism in the United States, that movement was established by European immigrants mostly from Germany later on.

Rabbi Jacob S. Raisin served as rabbi from 1915 to 1944.{{Cite web |title=Raisin, Jacob Zalman |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/raisin-jacob-zalman |access-date=2024-12-21 |website=Encyclopedia.com}} Rabbi Burton Padoll, who served as the synagogue's rabbi during the 1960s, was an outspoken activist for the rights of African-Americans. Rabbi Padoll was forced to resign as rabbi after prominent members of the congregation objected to his support for the civil rights movement.{{cite web |url=https://forward.com/opinion/310529/dont-whitewash-charlestons-jewish-history-of-racism/ |title=Don't Whitewash Charleston's Jewish History of Racism |date=22 June 2015 |publisher=The Forward |access-date=2018-08-29}}

The present Greek Revival building is the second oldest synagogue building in the United States, and the oldest in continuous use, in the United States;Gordon, Mark W. [https://ajhs.org/rediscovering-jewish-infrastructure-2021-update-on-united-states-eighteenth-and-nineteenth-century-synagogues/ "Rediscovering Jewish Infrastructure: 2022 Update on United States Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Synagogues"], American Jewish Historical Society, November 4, 2021. Accessed February 22, 2023. in addition, it has the oldest continually operating Jewish cemetery in the United States.{{cite web|url=http://www.nationalregister.sc.gov/charleston/S10817710102/index.htm

|title=Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue, Charleston County (90 Hasell St., Charleston) |access-date=2008-03-23|work=National Register Properties in South Carolina listing|publisher=South Carolina Department of Archives and History}} It is a single-story brick building, set on a raised granite foundation. The brick is stuccoed and painted white, and is marked in manner to resemble stone blocks. The portico comprises six fluted, equally spaced Doric columns, stucco over molded brick, approximating a Theseion order, supporting a gabled pediment.

The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 4, 1978, as Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue and was designated a National Historic Landmark on June 19, 1980.{{Cite web |title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim; Congregation Beth Elohim; Beth Elohim Synagogue |url={{NHLS url|id=78002499}} |format=pdf|date=April 1980 |author=Matherly, Polly Ann |publisher=National Park Service}} and {{NHLS url|id=78002499|title=Accompanying three photos, exterior and interior, from 1973 and 1977|photos=y}} {{small|(32 KB)}} The Coming Street Cemetery, owned by the Congregation, is listed separately on the National Register of Historic Places.

File:Congregation Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Historical Commission of Charleston Plaque.jpg

In 2021, a monument was installed with an inscription at the site of the synagogue, to commemorate the forced human labor extracted from Black Africans owned by industrialist and slaveowner David Lopez Jr in the construction of the site; In acknowledging the past injustice, Rabbi Stephanie Alexander says "We're being honest and transparent about what has enabled us to come together and has enabled us to come to this space."{{cite news |last1=Ciapha Dennis Jr |first1=Rickey |title=SC Synagogue Remembers Enslaved Black People Who Built It |url=https://www.southcarolinapublicradio.org/sc-news/2021-09-13/sc-synagogue-remembers-enslaved-black-people-who-built-it |access-date=8 February 2022 |agency=South Carolina Public Radio |publisher=NPR |date=13 September 2021}}

Inside the synagogue, there is a mural which includes a Jewish Confederate soldier sitting with a broken sword, an artistic depiction of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.{{cite web |url=https://jhssc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/History-Pocket-Guide.pdf |title=Pocket Guide to Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim and Charleston Jewish History |publisher=Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina |date= |accessdate=2022-04-23}}

{{clear}}

• Joseph Levy, a soldier
• Moses Lindo, a trader
• David Lopez Jr, a builder, industrialist, slave owner
• Francis Salvador, a plantation owner and the first Jew elected to U.S. public office
• Billy Simmons, an African-American Jew in the Antebellum period{{Cite book|last=O'Brien, Michael|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/57759012|title=Conjectures of order: intellectual life and the American South, 1810-1860|date=2004|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|isbn=0-8078-6373-4|location=Chapel Hill|oclc=57759012}}{{Cite book|last=Haynes, Bruce D., 1960-|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1006531808|title=The soul of Judaism : Jews of African descent in America|date=August 14, 2018|isbn=978-1-4798-1123-6|location=New York|oclc=1006531808}}

• List of National Historic Landmarks in South Carolina
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Charleston, South Carolina
• Oldest synagogues in the United States
• Touro Synagogue

{{Reflist}}

{{Commons category|Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue}}

• {{official website|http://www.kkbe.org/}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20080709041348/http://www.jhssc.org/index.html Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina website]
• [http://www.nationalregister.sc.gov/charleston/S10817710102/index.htm Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue, Charleston County (90 Hasell St., Charleston)], at South Carolina Department of Archives and History
• [http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/charleston/ Historic Charleston's Religious and Community Buildings, a National Park Service Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary]

{{Charleston, South Carolina}}

{{Synagogues in the United States}}

{{National Register of Historic Places in South Carolina}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beth Elohim}}

Category:1749 establishments in the Thirteen Colonies

Category:19th-century synagogues in the United States

Category:Buildings and structures in Charleston, South Carolina

Category:Founding members of the Union for Reform Judaism

Category:German-American culture in South Carolina

Category:German-Jewish culture in the United States

Category:Greek Revival architecture in South Carolina

Category:Greek Revival synagogues

Category:History of slavery in South Carolina

Category:Jewish-American history

Category:Jews and Judaism in Charleston, South Carolina

Category:Jewish organizations established in 1749

Category:National Historic Landmarks in South Carolina

Category:National Register of Historic Places in Charleston, South Carolina

Category:Portuguese-Jewish culture in the United States

Category:Reform synagogues in South Carolina

Category:Synagogues on the National Register of Historic Places in South Carolina

Category:Sephardi Jewish culture in South Carolina

Category:Sephardi Reform Judaism

Category:Spanish-Jewish culture in the United States

Category:Synagogues completed in 1794

Category:Synagogues completed in 1840