The small Mexican settlement of Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco in 1847 and quickly became the most important city in the American West. The discovery of gold in California in 1848 brought many German-speaking Jews from Bavaria and the Province of Posen to San Francisco. San Francisco's Jewish population was the second largest Jewish community in the country by 1880. Congregation Sherith Israel was established during the Gold Rush and is one of the oldest synagogues in the United States. The synagogue was the temple of the more old-fashioned Poseners which were less financially successful than the Bavarians.