Susan Hoffman
Upper Midwest Jewish Archives
320 Elmer L. Anderson Library
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Phone: 612-625-0192
Email: s-hoff@umn.edu
web: http://www.jhsum.org
Kenesseth Israel Collection Acc #0059
Kenesseth Israel is the oldest Minneapolis synagogue which still is Orthodox. It was founded in 1888 by a group of Lithuanian Jews and named Ohel Jacob. . Renamed Kenesseth Israel in 1891, it hired a rabbi in 1892,and a building was dedicated in 1894. It created a Hebrew Free School in the same year, the parent of the present-day Talmud Torah.
The synagogue constructed a magnificent new building at 518 Lyndale Avenue North and moved there in 1913. It remained there until 1948 when it purchased a building on Plymouth Avenue (aroundUpton). It moved to St. Louis Park in the 1960s, following North Side urban unrest.
The collection consists of correspondence from the turn of the century in English and Yiddish, board minutes, membership lists, and promotional materials. There are numerous gaps.
Within the correspondence one can discern how difficult it was for the synagogue to pay for work done in 1894, just a year after a severe national business downturn. There was, as well, a seemingly constant search for cantors
Box 24 D02S12CA
Board minutes? Ca 1916, Yiddish and photocopy
Board minutes 1928-39
Board minutes, 1952, 58-71
Board minutes, 1974-79
Presidents’ Reports, 1948-56 with gaps
Account book, 1909-1913
Loose account sheets, 1913, 1920-23
Membership lists, 1949,n.d.
Box 25 D02S12CA
Corresp, English and Yiddish, 1894-56 2 ff.
Corresp, 1894, Yiddish with translations
Corresp, photocopies, ca 1920, Yiddish
Material from cornerstone, 1912
Public relations materials, 1938-1960s?
