page_title: Wilshire Boulevard Temple
section_title: Rabbi Magnin and the move to Wilshire Boulevard
hierarchical_section_title: Wilshire Boulevard Temple / History / Rabbi Magnin and the move to Wilshire Boulevard
caption_attribution_description: English: The Wilshire Boulevard Temple — on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.
context_page_description: Wilshire Boulevard Temple, known from 1862 to 1933 as Congregation B'nai B'rith, is the oldest Jewish congregation in Los Angeles, California. Wilshire Boulevard Temple's main building, its sanctuary topped by a large Byzantine revival dome and decorated with interior murals, is a City of Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Moorish-style building, located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Wilshire Center district, was completed in 1929 and was designed by architect Abram M. Edelman.
  Wilshire Boulevard Temple is one of the largest Jewish congregations in Los Angeles, and has been led by several influential rabbis, especially Edgar Magnin, who has been described as the "John Wayne" of rabbis and who served for 69 years from 1915 to 1984. A second campus, on the Westside, opened in 1998. Despite repeated reports that the congregation might sell its older, landmark building in the changing Koreatown neighborhood, the temple began extensive renovations of the historic facility in 2008 under the leadership of the Senior Rabbi, Steven Z. Leder. The remodeled sanctuary reopened in 2013.
context_section_description: The current Wilshire Boulevard Temple opened in 1929, built among other significant places of worship in the Wilshire Center area.  The new temple was the dream of Rabbi Edgar Magnin who, over a career of seven decades, forged a Jewish identity for Los Angeles that joined pioneers and Hollywood moguls.  Known as the "Rabbi to the stars", Magnin came to B'nai B'rith as assistant rabbi in 1915 and from that time on he championed a new synagogue building.  The involvement of the Hollywood moviemakers after World War I and Magnin's promotion to senior rabbi in 1919 allowed the building to go forward.  Mostly displaced New Yorkers with marginal religious interest, the Hollywood producers were attracted to Magnin's image of a popular modern Judaism.  Rabbi Magnin also foresaw the movement of the city, and especially its Jewish population, westward.  In this, the Wilshire Boulevard Temple was both typical and prescient in anticipating the increased suburbanization of American Jewish life.  Because the new synagogue was beyond the "car line," it presaged L.A.'s near-total dependence on the automobile, an urban-suburban transformation that would affect most Jewish communities only after World War II.
  The artistic highlights of the temple include the Biblically-themed Warner Memorial Murals, painted by Hugo Ballin and commissioned by the Warner Brothers (who founded the movie studio of the same name), Jack, Harry, and Albert.  Ballin's murals consist of 320-foot-long (98 m), 7-foot-tall (2.1 m) murals depicting key moments in Jewish history.  The murals are atypical of Judaism's traditional avoidance of figurative synagogue art.  In deciding to include murals in the new temple, Magnin was inspired by his recent visits to great European cathedrals; the particular role of Los Angeles as the capital of the movie industry; and archaeological discoveries of the time that suggested that ancient synagogues used figurative art.
  Modeled after Rome's Pantheon, the immense Byzantine revival dome stands at 100 feet (30 m) in diameter with its top 135 feet (41 m) from the street. Its base is flanked by 28 buttresses, or small towers, rising from the ring girder for support.  Funding for the dome's interior decoration was donated by MGM studio production head Irving Thalberg.  The prayer inscribed in Hebrew around the Oculus, at the apex of the interior coffered dome, comes from the shm'a prayer, a centerpiece of all Jewish prayer services.  The words read: Shm'a Yisroael, Adonoi Eloheinu, Adonaoi Echad; which translates to "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One."
  Designed in the Gothic tradition by the Oliver Smith Studios of Pennsylvania, the Temple's distinctive rose window on the south wall of the sanctuary, and stained glass windows on the east and west walls, have been described as being among the finest examples of this art form in the United States.  During the recent renovation, the rose window was removed and repaired at the Judson Studios in Los Angeles. The Rose Window depicts a Torah Scroll and a Star of David in the center and symbols of the Twelve Tribes of Israel in the outer circle. The triple lancet windows on the east and west walls are each made up of some 5,000-6,000 pieces of glass and are the symbolic representation of the 12 tribes of Israel. Funding for the east and west lancet windows was donated by film producer and studio head Louis B. Mayer.
  The Temple's immense dome immediately became a landmark in Wilshire Center and throughout Los Angeles. Its imposing marble columns were also a form of Hollywood magic: they are hollow columns of plaster painted to mimic marble. And unlike many synagogues, the temple has no center aisle, in part because the temple builders' wanted it to mimic a movie theater.
  The construction of the temple was completed by the Herbert M. Baruch Corporation and cost $1.5 million in 1929 dollars.  It was dedicated in a three-day celebration in June 1929 presided over by Rabbi Magnin.
  The congregation adopted its present name, Wilshire Boulevard Temple, in 1933.  Magnin went on to head t
caption: View of the temple and dome from the east
exif: {"Image Make": "PENTAX Corporation", "Image Model": "PENTAX Optio V10", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Optio V10 Ver 1.00", "Image DateTime": "2007:02:10 21:04:22", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "590", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 33, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5620", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4938", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/250", "EXIF FNumber": "39/5", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:02:10 21:04:22", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:02:10 21:04:22", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "49/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "163/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3264", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2448", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1134", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "93", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Landscape", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "3"}