Museum at Eldridge Street

Job Details

Donors to the project to restore the historic Eldridge Street Synagogue. Also running programs on its history, culture, architecture, and preservation.

The Museum at Eldridge Street is one of the oldest synagogues in the United States and was the first one built in the Unite d States by Eastern European Jews. It opened at 12 Eldridge Street in New York’s Lower East Side in 1887.

For fifty years, the Eldridge Street Synagogue flourished. The membership began to dwindle as members moved to other areas. By the 1950s, with rain leaking in and inner stairs unsound, the congregants cordoned off the sanctuary. The sanctuary remained empty for twenty-five years, from approximately 1955 to 1980.

At the Museum at Eldridge Street they:

Welcome people of all faiths and cultures.
Teach and reinforce tolerance.
Believe diversity is their strength.
Believe openness and exchange makes us stronger.
Celebrate the special role that the Eldridge Street Synagogue plays in making Jewish life and immigrant culture available to all visitors, whatever their background.

The Eldridge Street Synagogue was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1996.

eldridgestreet.org