History

Just preceding the High Holidays in 1920, a very small group met in the Summer Street home of Mr. and Mrs. William Block to organize a new congregation in Stamford. They quickly found fifty interested families, rented space in the Greyrock Place building of the Hebrew Institute and were served by visiting rabbis. Within a year it had acquired the services of a young graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Rabbi Max Arzt, who was later to go on to become one of the greatest names in Conservative Judaism. And it took a name: Temple Beth El.

In 1922 a building committee was formed and on September 24, 1924, land was purchased for a building on Prospect Street. The first service was held at the new synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, September 27, 1927.

The synagogue flourished for more than forty years on Prospect Street. It served as a driving force in the growth of Stamford's Jewish population and culture.

The temple was carried through this period by a number of rabbis and cantors, most notably Rabbi David Pearlman and Rabbi Alex Goldman, who arrived in 1966, and Hazzan Sidney Rabinowitz, who arrived in 1970.

By the early 1970's, the temple's membership had grown to almost 500 and a new building was required. Ground was broken on Roxbury Road on April 23, 1972 and by the High Holidays of the following year, Beth El's beautiful new facilities were ready to welcome the community. Rabbi Joshua Hammerman was hired as the temple's first assistant rabbi in 1987, later becoming associate rabbi and then, in 1992, he became spiritual leader of the congregation.