1006 Greene Avenue was originally built in 1876 for use by Trinity Baptist Church as a church. By 1932 changes were happening in the increasingly Jewish Bedford-Stuyvesant community. The church building was purchased by the Orthodox Jewish Congregation B’nai Jacob Joseph and converted to a synagogue. By the mid 1960s further changes had come to Bedford-Stuyvesant and B’nai Adath began using our Synagogue building for services. When B’nai Jacob decided to sell the building, our parents and leaders seized their opportunity to establish a permanent home for our congregation.
In 1967 B’nai Adath purchased the building with help from B’nai Adath’s leading members, who mortgaged their own homes to enable the purchase. Our Synagogue building has been the center of the lives of our congregation and members ever since. While we love the size and history of our building, both have created challenges to our working-class congregation as the cost of maintaining the building has skyrocketed over the past 50 years.
In light of the age of our Synagogue building and the challenges with which its maintenance confronted us, a number of years ago we began working with the architectural firm of Landau|Zinder to re imagine our sanctuary and begin fundraising efforts to support a modernized home for B’nai Adath. The need and efforts to reimagine our home have only exponentially increased since November 14th, 2017 when B’nai Adath was devastated by fire.