Last year, the building that was Tifereth B’nai Jacob on Minneapolis’s north side became the second Minnesota synagogue to be named to the National Registry of Historic Places. This weekend, Minnesota’s Jewish community is partnering with the building’s current owners, the First Church of God in Christ – Graham Temple, for an event to celebrate the two communities’ shared history in North Minneapolis.
“From Synagogue to Church: A Shared North Side Story” is taking place at the church/former synagogue site (810 Elwood Ave. N.) on May 31 from 3-5 p.m. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the building, which was first built as an Orthodox synagogue.
“Let’s celebrate the fact that nationally, the Secretary of the Interior has recognized that this building has national historical importance,” said Marilyn Chiat, an art and architectural historian, who, along with Jeanne Halgren Kilde, the director of religious studies at the University of Minnesota, co-authored the application for the building to be on the national registry. “So let’s celebrate both congregations: The ones who built it and decorated it and worshiped in it and the Black congregation that has been great stewards of it for the last 70 years.”
The event is co-sponsored by the Upper Midwest Jewish Archives at the University of Minnesota Libraries, First Church of God in Christ, Beth El Synagogue, Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest, and Adath Jeshurun Congregation.
Kate Dietrick, the archivist at the Upper Midwest Jewish Archives, had been introduced to the building by Chiat, and then made it part of a YALA Twin Cities bus tour of historically significant Jewish sites.
“These were young adults [on the tour] who … had heard about the Jewish ties to North Minneapolis, but didn’t fully understand them, and also didn’t really fully understand the relationship between the Jewish community and the Black community,” said Dietrick. “And so we’re in this space that used to be a synagogue, but is now a Black church, and this was very interesting to them, these connections and that shared history of space.”
Through mergers and moves over the years after the building opened in 1926, it eventually became B’nai Emet, which later merged with Adath Jeshurun. Beth El is involved, said JHSUM director Robin Doroshow, because that congregation was founded on the North Side.
The building was built in 1926 atop one of the few hills in North Minneapolis, fulfilling a Jewish tradition that a house of worship should have the highest roof in the neighborhood.
In 1932, the interior was restored after a fire of “unknown origin,” Chiat said. The redecoration featured trompe l’oeil (“deceive the eye”) motifs and zodiac images, patterned after synagogue decoration in the immigrant congregation’s homeland.
“There have been zodiac images in synagogues since the fourth century,” Chiat said. “This synagogue is, as far as we know, the only one in the Twin Cities that had the Zodiac. And not only the signs, but the images. They’re along the edge of the balcony, beautifully rendered, and they read from right to left, just like Hebrew, starting with Libra, which is the fall.
“It’s brilliant. Whoever put together the program for that interior was a highly knowledgeable person, and the artist who created it was highly skilled.”
In 1957, the building was purchased by the Graham Temple, an African American Pentecostal Christian congregation, which has owned and stewarded the building ever since. The congregation was founded in 1923 by three couples from the Tulsa, Okla., area who headed north during the Great Migration. Under the leadership of Bishop John Graham, the church bought the building and adopted the name First Church of God in Christ in addition to the Graham Temple name. The artwork that Chiat talked about has been preserved in the church’s 70 years in the building, owing to the respect for the space.
“[They] could have painted it, but it was so beautiful, and it meant something to us as well,” Chiat said. “The ahron hakodesh, if you open it, has a stained glass window in the back and they left the stained glass window there.”
Dietrick said the event is important for the Jewish community understand the shared history and connection with the African American community.
“I am hopeful that there’s an understanding of not only the shared history in this space going back generations, but I’m also interested in this being potentially an opportunity for understanding current connections and the ways in which we are similar,” she said. “What does that mean and how can we continue to be friends and uplift each other’s communities? I feel like lately there’s been a push towards focusing more on what divides us rather than what brings us together.”
RSVP for the event on the Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest website.