page_title: Temple Israel (Memphis, Tennessee)
section_title: Samfield era (1871–1915)
hierarchical_section_title: Temple Israel (Memphis, Tennessee) / Samfield era (1871–1915)
caption_attribution_description: English: Rabbi Max Samfield, Temple Israel (Memphis, Tennessee)
context_page_description: Temple Israel is a Reform Jewish congregation in Memphis, Tennessee, in the United States. It is the only Reform synagogue in Memphis, the oldest and largest Jewish congregation in Tennessee, and one of the largest Reform congregations in the U.S. It was founded in 1853 by mostly German Jews as Congregation B'nai Israel. Led initially by cantors, in 1858 it hired its first rabbi, Jacob Peres, and leased its first building, which it renovated and eventually purchased.
  Peres was fired in 1860 because he opened a store that conducted business on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath. He was replaced by Simon Tuska, who moved the congregation from Orthodox to Reform practices. Tuska died in 1871, and was succeeded by Max Samfield; under his leadership, the synagogue was one of the founding members of the Union for Reform Judaism. In 1884, Children of Israel completed a new building, and membership grew rapidly. Samfield died in 1915, and was succeeded by Bill Fineshriber, an outspoken supporter of women's suffrage and equal rights for African Americans. The following year the congregation moved to a new building, where membership continued to grow.
context_section_description: In 1871, the congregation, whose membership by this time had reached 100, elected Max Samfield to succeed Tuska. The son of a rabbi, he was born in 1846 in Marktsteft, Bavaria, and was ordained in Germany. He left for the United States in 1867 to be rabbi of B'nai Zion Congregation of Shreveport, Louisiana, where he served for four years. He had significant competition for the role at B'nai Israel, with at least ten rabbis applying. Samfield had, however, preached there the Sabbath before the election for rabbi, and was hired for a one-year term. A strong proponent of Reform Judaism, he was associated with Wise in founding the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now Union for Reform Judaism), and under his leadership, B'nai Israel became one of its founding members in 1873. He was also president of the Board of Governors of Hebrew Union College (HUC) in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was supervisor of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. In 1875, he asked the congregation if he could abandon wearing the traditional head covering while leading the prayers; in response, the members resolved that all men would be required to remove their hats during services. He led the congregation to adopt the Reform movement's new Union Prayer Book in 1896, but resisted moving Sabbath services to Sunday. Like most Reform rabbis at that time, he was strongly anti-Zionist, writing that Zionism was "an abnormal eruption of perverted sentiment".
  A Scottish Mason, Samfield was committed to public service. When Tennessee's first Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Children was formed in 1880, he became its first vice-president, and in 1889, he led the fundraising for Memphis's first civilian hospital, St. Joseph's, a Catholic institution. He founded Memphis's Hebrew Relief Association, and the non-sectarian United Charities, and was a director of the New Orleans Jewish Orphans' Home, Denver's Jewish Consumptive House, and New York's Sheltering House Association. For the last fifteen years of his life he worked to create a home for elderly and infirm Southern Jews, completed in 1927.
  During Memphis's 1873 yellow fever epidemic, he—along with other Memphis rabbis and leading Jews—remained in the city rather than fleeing. During the seven weeks the epidemic lasted, 51 people were buried in B'nai Israel's cemetery, almost twice the number typically buried there in a whole year. When another yellow fever epidemic broke out in 1878, Samfield stayed again, ministering to the dead and dying of all faiths. During that epidemic 78 people were buried in the congregation's cemetery. The city's frequent yellow fever epidemics decimated its Jewish community, which dropped from 2,100 to 300. They also hurt B'nai Israel's finances; members did not pay their dues, and for a time the congregation could not afford to pay Samfield. By 1880, however, membership had increased to 124 families, and finances had improved. By this time, the synagogue was more typically called Children of Israel. Beth El Emeth was affected more severely than Children of Israel by the epidemics; its rabbi (Peres) died of yellow fever in 1879. In 1882, Beth El Emeth disbanded, and transferred its property to Children of Israel, though most Beth El Emeth members joined the Orthodox Baron Hirsch Synagogue. The property included land on Second Street, and Beth El Emeth's cemetery.
  In 1872, Children of Israel purchased land on Adams Avenue, with the intent of building a new synagogue there, but financial pressures delayed the project, and in 1880 the congregation decided to sell the property and find a better one. They sold the lot in 1882, and instead purchased land on Poplar Avenue between Second and Third Streets. By 1884, they had completed a new synagogue building there, at a cost of $39,130 (today $1,113,000). The Byzantine Revival structure had an impressive façade featuring twin tall spires and a large round window containing a Star of David. The building helped attract new members; by 1885 an additional 45 had joined, for a total of 173 member families, and the cong
caption: Rabbi Max Samfield
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