Adas Israel Congregation (or Adath Israel Congregation, but known locally as the 3rd Street Shul) was a

Modern Orthodox Modern may refer to: History *Modern history ** Early Modern period ** Late Modern period *** 18th century *** 19th century *** 20th century ** Contemporary history * Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century Philosophy ...

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

ish

synagogue A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It is a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as wed ...

located in

Duluth, Minnesota Duluth ( ) is a Port, port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of St. Louis County, Minnesota, St. Louis County. Located on Lake Superior in Minnesota's Arrowhead Region, the city is a hub for cargo shipping. The population ...

, established in the late 19th century. Until its destruction by arson on September 9, 2019, it was the oldest surviving Orthodox synagogue in Duluth having outlived and incorporated several Orthodox synagogues in the

Twin Ports The Duluth MN–WI Metropolitan Area, commonly called the Twin Ports, is a small metropolitan area centered around the cities of Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin. The Twin Ports are located at the western part of Lake Superior (the we ...

area. By 1973, it was the only Orthodox synagogue in Duluth. It could also be described as a Jewish "traditionalist" congregation because in official communal guidelines it is officially described as "an

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pag ...

/high

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...

congregation" meaning that its members are composed of some Orthodox Jews as well as those who practice an older form of traditional Judaism. It is described as having a membership of 75.

Services Service may refer to: Activities * Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty * Civil service, the body of employees of a government * Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a ...

were lay-led with daily

minyan In Judaism, a ''minyan'' ( ''mīnyān'' , Literal translation, lit. (noun) ''count, number''; pl. ''mīnyānīm'' ) is the quorum of ten Jewish adults required for certain Mitzvah, religious obligations. In more traditional streams of Judaism ...

Saturday Saturday is the day of the week between Friday and Sunday. No later than the 2nd century, the Romans named Saturday ("Saturn's Day") for the god Saturn. His planet, Saturn, controlled the first hour of that day, according to Vettius Valens. T ...

morning and

holiday A holiday is a day or other period of time set aside for festivals or recreation. ''Public holidays'' are set by public authorities and vary by state or region. Religious holidays are set by religious organisations for their members and are often ...

services. On September 9, 2019, the 3rd Street synagogue was destroyed by a fire, caused by

arson Arson is the act of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Although the act of arson typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, watercr ...

Geography and membership

Duluth is a

seaport A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manc ...

city A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

and the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

of St. Louis County. It forms a

metropolitan area A metropolitan area or metro is a region consisting of a densely populated urban area, urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories which share Industry (economics), industries, commercial areas, Transport infrastructure, transport network ...

with

Superior Superior may refer to: *Superior (hierarchy), something which is higher in a hierarchical structure of any kind Places * Superior (proposed U.S. state), an unsuccessful proposal for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to form a separate state *Lak ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

, Called the

, these two cities share the Duluth-Superior Harbor and together are one of the most important ports on the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes spanning the Canada–United States border. The five lakes are Lake Superior, Superior, Lake Michigan, Michigan, Lake Huron, H ...

, shipping

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the f ...

(

taconite Taconite () is a variety of banded iron formation, an iron-bearing (over 15% iron) sedimentary rock, in which the iron minerals are interlayered with quartz, chert, or carbonate. The name ''taconyte'' was coined by Horace Vaughn Winchell (1865– ...

), and

grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached husk, hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and ...

. This unique location attracted Jewish settlers who set up a number of synagogues that still serve

s from the surrounding areas: The Duluth area Jewish community is a mix of families that have been here for five generations, persons who have come to work in the three universities or the medical services industry, and

hose A hose is a flexible hollow tube or pipe designed to carry fluids from one location to another, often from a faucet or hydrant. Early hoses were made of leather, although modern hoses are typically made of rubber, canvas, and helically wound w ...

who followed other types of jobs or their hearts to this beautiful area. It is a diverse community... hecommunity also includes families across the state line in Superior and other Jewish families within a hundred mile radius of Duluth in Northeastern Minnesota and Northwestern Wisconsin. The Jewish Community consisted of two synagogues. Adas Israel Congregation was an Orthodox congregation with a membership of 75. Services were lay-led with daily minyans, Saturday morning and holiday services. Temple Israel was a

Reform Reform refers to the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The modern usage of the word emerged in the late 18th century and is believed to have originated from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement, which ...

congregation. This building was the hub of the Jewish community, with religious, educational and cultural events taking place in the facility.

Community and synagogue history

The origins of this synagogue are tied in with the earliest settlement of Minnesota by Jews fleeing persecutions in

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...

including

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Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

and

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

in the 19th century. In one published family history, the synagogue's establishment is described as part of the development of Jewish, indeed European, communal life: :In 1871, my father's grandparents, Nettie and Bernard Silberstein from Hungary, were the first Jewish newlyweds to make their home in Duluth, Minn., when it was a western frontier town with mostly Native Americans in the region. He established the first synagogue and the dry goods store that set the standard of quality for merchants who followed...In the beginning, in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

of the early 1800s... We lived in villages and

shtetl or ( ; , ; Grammatical number#Overview, pl. ''shtetelekh'') is a Yiddish term for small towns with predominantly Ashkenazi Jews, Ashkenazi Jewish populations which Eastern European Jewry, existed in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust. The t ...

s, like Novoukrainka and Revutskoye, in the rich farmland between

Odessa ODESSA is an American codename (from the German language, German: ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', meaning: Organization of Former SS Members) coined in 1946 to cover Ratlines (World War II aftermath), Nazi underground escape-pl ...

and

Kiev Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

, near

Yelisavetgrad Kropyvnytskyi (, ) is a city in central Ukraine, situated on the Inhul, Inhul River. It serves as the administrative center of Kirovohrad Oblast. Population: Over its history, Kropyvnytskyi has changed its name several times. The settlement ...

, now Kirovograd. At first we spoke Russian and Yiddish, then English, some better than others. We devotedly helped each other get from Russia to Duluth and Superior, then to establish homes and businesses...Landing on the Atlantic Coast in 1883, my great-grandfather "Little Joe" and his brother Israel...walked most of the way to northern Minnesota along the construction route of the new Canadian-Pacific Railway...In Spring, 1884 they arrived by boat in Duluth Harbor, among the first eastern Europeans there...All this time, cousin Yosef Mendel Oreckovsky, well-trained in Russia, was assistant

rabbi A rabbi (; ) is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as ''semikha''—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of t ...

at Orthodox Temple Tifereth Israel and later helped found Congregation Adas Israel, the "Fourth Street shul". Other histories record that Adas Israel was formed in the 1890s by members of the Moses Montefiore congregation, an earlier Orthodox congregation composed of

Lithuanian Jews {{Jews and Judaism sidebar , Population Litvaks ({{Langx, yi, ליטװאַקעס) or Lita'im ({{Langx, he, לִיטָאִים) are Jews who historically resided in the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (covering present-day Lithuan ...

. By the turn of the 20th century, there were close to 1,500 Jews living in Duluth, most of who were Russian or Eastern European. The men in the picture were observing Simchas Torah, the holiday marking the end of the weekly cycle of Torah readings. (1914)...The men are assembled on the bimah (the stage or platform in front of the Ark) containing the

Torah scrolls A Sephardic Torah scroll rolled to the first paragraph of the Shema An Ashkenazi Torah scroll rolled to the Decalogue file:Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue, Interior, Tora Cases.jpg">Torah cases at Knesset Eliyahoo Synagogue, Mumbai, India ...

of Adas -- literally, "'congregation'

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

". (1919). Female members of the congregation were active with social, humanitarian and charitable causes. "The ''Adas Israel Ladies' Aid'' of Duluth are ... examples of Orthodox synagogue' women's groups that helped the poor, the sick and the needy as well as their own synagogues." In 1930, Adas Israel absorbed the B'nai Israel Synagogue of Duluth. Adas Israel was the oldest surviving original synagogue, being a continuation of earlier synagogues and a living symbol of a surviving active Jewish community in northeast Minnesota. It was the only surviving Orthodox synagogue, until the establishment of a

Chabad Chabad, also known as Lubavitch, Habad and Chabad-Lubavitch (; ; ), is a dynasty in Hasidic Judaism. Belonging to the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) branch of Orthodox Judaism, it is one of the world's best-known Hasidic movements, as well as one of ...

Hasidic Hasidism () or Hasidic Judaism is a religious movement within Judaism that arose in the 18th century as a spiritual revival movement in contemporary Western Ukraine before spreading rapidly throughout Eastern Europe. Today, most of those aff ...

synagogue in 2001.

Destruction

A fire which began just before 2.30 am on September 9, 2019, totally destroyed the building. It was thought that eight of the 14 Torah scrolls were able to be saved from the debris. A suspect, Matthew Amiot, was arrested on September 13 and was to be charged with first-degree arson. No one was in the building at the time of the fire. Amiot had no permanent address and was reported to suffer from multiple mental health issues. He was later sentenced to a year in jail.

References

{{reflist Russian-Jewish culture in the United States 19th-century synagogues in the United States Duluth–Superior metropolitan area Lithuanian-American culture in Minnesota Lithuanian-Jewish culture in the United States Buildings and structures in Duluth, Minnesota Former synagogues in Minnesota Russian-American culture in Minnesota Ukrainian-American culture in Minnesota Ukrainian-Jewish culture in the United States Synagogues destroyed by arson Union for Traditional Judaism Religious buildings and structures in the United States destroyed by arson 1890s establishments in Minnesota Jewish organizations established in the 1890s 2019 disestablishments in Minnesota

Geography and membership

Community and synagogue history

Destruction

See also

References