![]() In the midst of planning, a merger of the two congregations was proposed. In 1918, B’nai Abraham purchased a lot at the corner of Washington Boulevard and Karlov Avenue and began making plans to erect a new synagogue on that site. ![]() At the time, Zion Congregation and B’nai Abraham Congregation were the only two synagogues west of the Chicago River.įor almost fifty years, B’nai Abraham and Zion, both with growing memberships and influenced by the inexorable movement of their members west, made several roughly parallel moves into larger and larger buildings on the West Side. The transformation from an Orthodox to a Reform congregation was underway at least by early 1878 when the synagogue purchased a small organ from another congregation. B’nai Abraham was formed from ad hoc minyans that in the beginning gathered in various rented halls and churches. Zion was one of only two synagogues in Chicago to escape the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. ![]() Zion initially held services in a rented Baptist Church until its first building was erected on Des Plaines Street between Madison and Washington Streets. Oak Park Temple began its history as the product of a merger between two congregations on Chicago’s West Side: Zion Congregation, founded in 1864 by Rabbi Bernhard Felsenthal, an immigrant and leader in the burgeoning Reform movement in the U.S., and B’nai Abraham Congregation, originally an Orthodox shul on the southwest side established in 1873.
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