CAS History

Agudath Sholom Synagogue 1889

It was on September 7, 1889 that twenty-two members formally declared themselves as "Agudath Sholom Synagogue". The words Agudath Sholom have sometimes been translated as a "knot for peace", yet the closer translation most used today is a "society for peace".

The story of Agudath Sholom in Stamford mirrors in many ways the history of the Jewish community in New England, particularly in the state of Connecticut.

Jews trickled to Connecticut as early as the colonial days. The first ones to arrive were of Spanish and Portuguese ancestry but being few in numbers, were not able to create a viable community.

In the early and middle nineteenth century, Jews came from Germany seeking to free themselves from the rigidity of Prussian life, as it meant a stratified oppression. A Jew born in Europe - and particularly in Germany - had a slot in society and not much room to maneuver. America meant freedom to build a completely new life and if one possessed imagination and drive, anything seemed possible.

The number of German Jews who settled in Stamford was small, thus many of those early settlers tended to assimilate and blend with the general community and did not seek to create a Jewish religious and social life.

The 1880's saw a different breed. Escaping the teeming tenements of New York's lower east side; desperately poor Jews of Eastern European ancestry started to arrive in Stamford. They had no crafts or special skills, but had an uncanny ability to adapt and survive. They hooked up their carts and with the few dollars they could muster, outfitted and piled them with junk and assorted New York "goods". They came to Stamford and to the adjoining villages and peddled their wares door-to-door.

Farm wives and women of the area were delighted to see them, for these men brought with them much needed household implements as well as news of the outside metropolitan world. The work was hard and backbreaking as the peddlers trudged along unpaved roads in rain and winter storms. The "blizzard of ‘88" was particularly difficult and many lost their carts in the snowstorm.

These newcomers were mostly young, unmarried men who boarded with the four Jewish families that were in town. For fifteen cents a night one could get a mattress and breakfast the next morning.

By 1887 some tradesmen began arriving in town and the emerging Jewish community of Stamford expanded in small, hesitant steps.

Observance of Jewish laws and worship was still makeshift and haphazard. The first prayer meetings were held in an empty attic on Cedar Street, then at Joe Blum's boarding house, graduating to a larger room in Simon Rosenberg's tailor shop and then to a rented store on Greyrock Place. Kosher meat had to be imported from New York, bread from Port Chester, and traveling Rabbis would visit on some weekends and high holidays.

(Five Books of Moses) was bought on an installment plan.

Once the payments on the Torah were complemented in July 1889, the officially established synagogue of Agudath Sholom was launched. On High Holidays services were held in Miller's Small Hall on the corner of Main and Pacific.

The budding Jewish community was not spared prejudice and ignorance. Worshippers at Miller's Hall were heckled and ridiculed, there was a spate of anti-Semitic remarks in the local newspapers and scuffles with youth gangs. The importance of having a proper cemetery was recognized and in the early 1890's two acres of land were purchased in Roxbury for $175. Soon the members were engaged in the task of clearing the ground and preparing it to be a suitable burial plot.

By the turn of the century, the congregation took a big step for solidification of its communal life when it bought its first parcel of land for $1,000, collected in nickels and dimes. As part of the fund raising a formal elegant ball was held on April 15, 1902 in the Town hall attended by local dignitaries. It was a first for the Jewish community of Stamford and it added a sense of glamour to the launching of the building project.

The cornerstone for the Greyrock Synagogue was laid in 1904 in the presence of town officials and visiting rabbis, and the building was completed in 1908. But a "cellar" for the building was erected a few months after the laying of the cornerstone and that "cellar" was a center buzzing with activities. A Talmud Torah (Hebrew School) met there daily, for two hours every afternoon except Fridays and Saturdays.

As the years passed the congregation grew and mirrored the changes occurring in the general community and the Jewish world in particular. But always at the center of its life was the sense that a community is a Kehila, an extension of a family, a bonding of a people whose aim is to protect, aid, build educate, and keep the religious consciousness of its members.

Organizations were formed. The Hachnasat Orchim, to welcome newcomers to the community; the Gemilut Chassadim, helping people in need; the Hebrew Society, raising funds for the building and for the establishment and running of a Hebrew School.

Just before and during the first World War, different competing views moved the Jewish community. From Russia came activists who were imbued with socialist ideals. Their approach was populist; they saw Yiddish as the language of the people and wanted to see it used in Jewish education. The mainstream Orthodox, on the other hand, continued to see Hebrew as the language of prayer and the language of the merging nationhood in the land of Israel.

They were ardent Zionists and in the cellar, the Talmud Torah continued to instruct the children both in the traditional observance of customs and in the history and goals of the Jewish people who were reclaiming and rebuilding their land in far away Palestine.

Paradoxically though, the inflection of the Hebrew language was to be Ashkenasy (of Germanic derivation) and non-religious dealings were to be conducted in Yiddish and German as stated in the Pinkas (the synagogue's book of records).

In 1917, when American entered World War I, the Jewish community was swept with patriotic fervor. Many enlisted in the U.S. armed forces and some even joined the Gedud Ivri, the British sponsored Jewish Legion that was to serve in the North African campaign and then moved to conquer Palestine from the hands of the Turks.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917 excited the imagination and passion of the Jewish community. Suddenly building the Jewish homeland in Palestine had a special immediacy. The concept of Shivat Zion, the return to Zion, and the rebuilding of the land of Israel, was an integral part of the religious belief that the covenant with Abraham and the vision of ancient prophets would culminate with the Jewish people redeeming itself in its own land.

An organization know as L'Maan Zion (on behalf of Zion) was founded as early as 1902. It raised funds for building, planting trees, and aiding the pioneers in Palestine. It also worked on strengthening and expanding the Hebrew School, seeing in it the vehicle of educating the young in the love of Israel.

The early 1920s were trying times for Eastern European communities. Civil war raged in Russia and the provinces of the Ukraine. Cossacks led by a rabid anti-Semite, Petlura, devastated Jewish communities with massacres and pogroms. The Jewish population in the United States responded emotionally to the plight of their brothers and sisters and so did the community of Stamford.

Funds were raised to aid thousands of refugees that streamed out of Europe helping them resettle and rebuild their lives.

Although the Jewish community of Stamford branched out into various affiliations, the Greyrock Synagogue remained a central point for the community, a mother to organization that had their roots and developed out of its core.

In February 1932 tragedy struck. The Synagogue's building on Greyrock was completely gutted by fire. It took six years to mobilize and build again. It was not until 1938 that a new building was erected on rove Street and the Chanukah Habit dedication occurred on the High Holidays.