page_title: History of the Jews in Pittsburgh
section_title: Founding
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Jews in Pittsburgh / Founding
caption_attribution_description: English: HeyYallYo Old building and former synagogue in Pittsburgh. This file is utterly free to all throughout the universe forever. YO. Uploader gave it this caption: 25 Miller Street. Not Kanascis Israel originally. 72 Miller street still exists in 2007.
context_page_description: Jewish history of Pittsburgh, the second largest city in the state of Pennsylvania, United States, and the chief city of Western Pennsylvania. As of 2002, Jewish households represented 3.8% of Allegheny County households. In 2012, Pittsburgh's Jewish community celebrated its 100th year of federated giving through the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. The city's Jewish federation is one of the oldest in the country, marking the deep historical roots of Jews in Pittsburgh.
context_section_description: There are no reliable records of the beginnings of the Pittsburgh Jewish community, but it has been ascertained that between 1838 and 1844 a small number of Jews, mostly from Baden, Bavaria, and Württemberg, settled in and around Pittsburgh. These communities continued to expand from 1847 until 1852. Though the first official Jewish service was held in the autumn of 1844, Jews in Pittsburgh did not officially organize until 1847, when several men worshiped in a room on Penn street and Walnut (now 13th) street, having engaged the Rev. Mannheimer as cantor. After this meeting, the men also formed a Bes Almon Society and purchased a cemetery at Troy Hill. This newly formed organization lacked homogeneity due to the varying religious views of its members, and divisions and reunions took place from time to time until about 1853, when a united congregation was formed under the name Rodef Shalom. In 1864 a small group of congregants dissatisfied with the movement toward Reform practices at Rodef Shalom formed a breakaway Orthodox congregation, Etz Chayyim (Tree of Life), and purchased a cemetery at Sharpsburg. By 1886, Etz Chayyim, now called Tree of Life Congregation, had affiliated itself with the Conservative movement.
  In the broader American Jewish community, Pittsburgh is also famous for the 1885 "Pittsburgh Platform" which articulated bold and radical new ideas from the Reform movement on approaching theology and the modern world. 
  At the turn of the century, two or three synagogues were established in or on the fringe of the area which is now called the Lower Hill District.  One old building near Elm Street (called "The Old Jewish Church" by some people) was demolished and replaced.  A group called Beth Hamedrash Hagodol-Beth Jacob Congregation meets in the new synagogue.  At least one old building has survived on nearby Miller Street in the area once known colloquially as "Jews Hill", although it has since been converted into a church.
caption: Former synagogue on Miller Street near downtown Pittsburgh, August 2007.
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