Memory Lane: Congregation Bnai Israel of Boro Park

The congregation with which we deal here today is not to be confused with its somewhat more senior counterpart; Congregation B’nai Israel of Linden Heights, which has a similarly rich history…for another day. 

Situated among the commercial retail locations all around it, the shul is part of what some would call “Boro Park’s Shtiebel row (as the Lower East Side’s East Broadway was known),” as it is nestled between a shul on each of its sides, with yet another shtiebel (Anshei Marmorosh) directly across the Fifteenth Avenue. 

But, as we learn from perusing the 1940’s tax photos, it is the first shtiebel on the block. Levine’s Food Store was located on the corner, where the Belzer Shtiebel is located today, and the Novaradoker Talmud Torah before that, while a kosher butcher was located on the other side. Like so many of those early shtieblach, Bnai Israel was begun in a storefront. 

“Remembering Boro Park” 

A lifelong Boro Parker who dedicated himself to commemorating Boro Park of yore was the unforgettable Dr. Phillip Kipust. He grew up in Boro Park of the 1930’s, and aside from his own rich memories and recollections, he had access to those who resided in the town one or two generations before him. Together—and along with likeminded history afficionados—he published the I Remember Boro Park column in the now-defunct Boro Park Community News. 

It is a fountain of Boro Park history, and it is here that we learn about some of the history of the Shul, its people, its officers and its rabbonim.  

“Chevra Bnai Israel of Boro Park is situated at 4304 15th Avenue,” begins the profile, “in an attached storefront building. The front of the store was bricked, and the second floor was made into a women’s gallery with the front section, about fifteen feet deep, completely open to the ground floor (what the writer seems not to have known was that for the first years of the existence of the shul, it remained exactly as it was found; a storefront, with glass showcase windows. The words ‘Chevra Bnei Yisroel, d’Boro Park, l’hispalel b’chol yom erev uboker,’ conspicuously hung inside the window facing the outside). 

The congregation was started around 1930. 

According to an old member, Mr. Miller, the property was purchased for $20,000. It was purchased from the bank and required $5000 for a down payment, and the mortgage was $15,000. 

The Rabbonim

One of the men interviewed was Mr. Aaron Prager, who has been the gabbai of the shul for many years. Mr. Prager moved to Boro Park in 1939, when he married the daughter of Rav Avrohom Yaakov Brill, who was then the Rabbi of this congregation (more about Rabbi Brill later). 

The Pragers first lived at 4309 15th Avenue, above a store. He said there was a candy story on the corner of forty-third street (across the street, where Freund’s Fish is now located). “Hardly any stores were closed on Shabbos when I came to Boro Park in 1939,” Mr. Prager commented,” and the community was then composed of mostly Jews and Italians, no other ethnic groups. In those days, many Jews went to Shul on Shabbos mornings, and would open their stores after davening. Today, all stores are Shomrei Shabbos.” 

The Shul had three Rabbonim (prior to its current rov, Rav Pesachia Fried). Rav Avrohom Yaakov Brill served from 1933 to 1943. He was a tremendous ga’on, and a son-in-law of Rav Itzele Rabinowitz of Ponovezh. He received three dollars per week for his work. 

The second Rov was Rav Sholom Podolefsky, who served for three decades, from 1943-1964. Originally of Horedetz, near Kobrin in Russia, he learned in great yeshivos, and was a great talmid chochom. His starting salary was a whopping $5 per week. 

Finally, at the time of the interview, Rav Zev Joseph was serving as the rov, beginning in 1964. Like his predecessors, he delivered shiurim in the shul, and was the longest-serving rov in the Shul’s history. 

The shul has made even more recent renovations, even as they have kept some of the original features that were put in the building many years ago—relics nearly a century old, when the shul was established in Boro Park of yore.