The history of the Synagogue and its changing role in American Jewish culture.

Read the Jewish Idea Daily's review here.
In 1789, when George Washington was elected the first president of the United States, laymen from all six Jewish congregations in the new nation sent him congratulatory letters. He replied to all six. Thus, after more than a century of Jewish life in colonial America the small communities of Jews present at the birth of the nation proudly announced their religious institutions to the country and were recognized by its new leader. By this time, the synagogue had become the most significant institution of American Jewish life, a dominance that was not challenged until the twentieth century, when other institutions such as Jewish community centers or Jewish philanthropic organizations claimed to be the hearts of their Jewish communities.
Concise yet comprehensive, The Synagogue in America is the first history of this all-important structure, illuminating its changing role within the American Jewish community over the course of three centuries. From Atlanta and Des Moines to Los Angeles and New Orleans, Marc Lee Raphael moves beyond the New York metropolitan area to examine Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, and Reconstuctionist synagogue life everywhere. Using the records of approximately 125 Jewish congregations, he traces the emergence of the synagogue in the United States from its first instances in the colonial period, when each of the half dozen initial Jewish communities had just one synagogue each, to its proliferation as the nation and the American Jewish community grew and diversified.
Encompassing architecture, forms of worship, rabbinic life, fundraising, creative liturgies, and feminism, The Synagogue in America is the go-to history for understanding the synagogue’s significance in American Jewish life.

"Raphael...has produced a short, highly readable and wholly illuminating study that will delight anyone who has ever seat in shul and told himself the beloved old Jewish joke that ends with the punch line: 'To that one, I never go." The book is a solid work of scholarship..." - The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles

"Raphael offers an insightful, scholarly, and comprehensive overview of the evolution and changing role of the American synagogue"" - Choice

". . . a brilliant new interpretation of American synagogue history" - The Jewish Daily Forward

"In the first ever study to look at American Jewish history through its synagogues, Raphael looks at the changing role of the synagogue from colonial days whe it was the central address of the community to the present, when other institutions also dominate. Reporting on synagogues in cities and suburbs around the country, he writes about prayer, rabbinic leadership, architecture, fund-raising, feminism and social life." - New York Jewish Week

"Raphael . . . has produced a short, highly readable and wholly illuminating study that will delight anyone who has ever sat in shul and told himself the beloved old Jewish joke that ends with the punch line: 'To that one, I never go." - JewishJournal.com

"Raphael's book is finely written and provides an accessible overview of the major historical, demographic, and liturgical changes in the synaogogue's long and ever-adapting history...[it is] an engaging portrait of the emergence of Jewish congregations during the Colonial and early-Republican periods." - Jewish Ideas Daily

"Raphael, one of the foremost scholars on American Judaism and American Jewish history, has written a first rate account of a fundamental institution in American Jewish life. . . He offers precise portraits of individual synagogues but also shows how those institutions, in the aggregate, reveal larger patterns of affiliation, worship, leadership, and design. . . It is a rare treat to read a historical review this compact and full of personality." - Net Reviews

"This 'short history' of the synagogue in America is concise, fairly comprehensive, and the first of its kind." - Jewish Review of Books

"Raphael has a storytellers talent and a scholars mastery of the subject. His vivid portraits of synagogue life and its many permutations and his respect for all aspects of Jewish congregational life make this book appealing to all readers who relish reading Jewish and American history." - Jewish Book Council

"A useful and concise scholarly treatise, which neatly interweaves the facts of the evolution of the American synagogue." - Library Journal

"Raphael, a Reform rabbi and professor of religious studies at the College of William and Mary, has written a concise, detailed history of the synagogue as a religious institution in the U.S." - Booklist