The Vilna Shul

The Vilna Shul is a synagogue in Boston, Massachusetts built for an Orthodox congregation in 1919 by immigrants primarily from Vilna, Lithuania. The building stands on what is known as the back side of Beacon Hill. The front of the hill has always been filled with stately homes and faces the Boston Common. The back of the hill was the early residence of Boston’s black community and, later, of a series of immigrant communities. In the first half of the twentieth century, there were several immigrant synagogues in this area. By the 1980’s, the Jewish community had almost entirely left the neighborhood and the shul was all but abandoned. An argument broke about whether the synagogue should be sold and the proceeds given to another congregation, turned into a community center for the residents of the neighborhood, or preserved as a monument or museum to the immigrant generations of Jews. [ Deserted Synagogue of 1919 Sets Off Boston Tug-of-War, By CONSTANCE L. HAYS, NEW YORK TIMES, December 21, 1989 [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=travel&res=950DEEDE113CF932A15751C1A96F948260] ]

The synagogue was designed by Boston architect David Kalman, [ Boston A to Z - Page 335by Thomas H. O'Connor, Harvard University Press, 2000 -, p. 335 ] but the Shul is not noteworthy for its architecture, according to Stanley Smith, then executive director of Historic Boston Inc., a nonprofit group that recommended preserving the old synagogue. "It's not high style, not one of the great monuments of architecture that you would travel miles to see. It's like many of the early meetinghouses and churches that are highly representative of the immigrants who built them." [ Deserted Synagogue of 1919 Sets Off Boston Tug-of-War, By CONSTANCE L. HAYS, NEW YORK TIMES, December 21, 1989 [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=travel&res=950DEEDE113CF932A15751C1A96F948260] ] [ Synagogue Architecture in America: Faith, Spirit & Identityby Henry Stolzman, Daniel Stolzman University of Michigan Press, p. 143 ] According to the American Jewish Historical Society, there is “no record of any important event ever taking place at that congregation,” which was one of many modest synagogues built by Jewish immigrants. [ Deserted Synagogue of 1919 Sets Off Boston Tug-of-War, By CONSTANCE L. HAYS, NEW YORK TIMES, December 21, 1989 [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=travel&res=950DEEDE113CF932A15751C1A96F948260] ] The Vilna Shul was, however, the last of the purpose-built immigrant synagogues still standing in downtown Boston at the end of the twentieth century. The Vilna Center for Jewish Heritage was founded to raise funds to preserve and restore the synagogue for use as a Jewish cultural heritage center. [ Bit of Boston's Jewish Pride Is Revived, by GUSTAV NIEBUHR , New York Times, December 1, 1996 [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01E7D9153CF932A35751C1A960958260] ]

Three million dollars were spent on the architectural restoration of the synagogue building, which now houses a small exhibit on the history of the synagogue and of the Boston Jewish community. [ Center preserves Jewish history, By Gary Band - The Jewish Advocate, March 3, 2008 ] The building, opened daily by the Boston Center for Jewish Heritage, is a regular part of the Beacon Hill tourist circuit. It is also once again a house of worship in active use as the home of Havurah on the Hill. [ [http://www.vilnashul.com/ The Vilna Shul ] ]

References

External links

* [http://www.vilnashul.com/ Official website]