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A synagogue that’s a museum to Boston’s Jewish heritage

Photo: Kathryn Kennedy

ews were not granted full rights of citizenship in Massachusetts until 1821, and were not allowed to be buried in the state until 1844. But immigration picked up in the 19th century, and by 1900 there were 40,000 Jews in Boston and its suburbs; today there are about 250,000. The only synagogue in Boston remaining from the great era of immigration, the Vilna Shul, has been restored as a monument to this heritage. Built in 1919 by Jews from the Lithuanian city of Vilna (now called Vilnius) the shul is a hybrid between a European synagogue and a colonial New England meeting house, though it has traditional separate seating for men and women, who had their own door in the alley on the right. The two-story Ark of the Covenant was carved by Jewish artisans who formerly crafted wooden ponies for carousels in Eastern Europe. Services at the shul ended in 1985. Marcus

Shhhh! The congregation first bought a former
black Baptist church at 45 Phillips St. and converted
it into a synagogue in 1906, but it was taken over by the city to expand an adjacent public school.

Shhhh! Phillips Street, the synagogue’s
address, was named for Wendell Phillips, an abolitionist and advocate for native Americans.
He refused to eat cane sugar or wear cotton,
since both were produced by slaves.

Shhhh! The Jews who remained in Vilna were
forced into ghettos by the Nazis during World War II. Ninety-five percent of them were killed.

Shhh who knew

Despite the fact that they themselves had fled religious persecution, the ruling Puritans banished Boston’s first Jewish resident, Solomon Franco, in 1640; another of Boston’s earliest Jews was required to convert to Christianity before he could join the Harvard faculty—to teach Hebrew.