Beth Hamedrash Hagadol

Beth Hamedrash Hagodol (lit. 'Great Study House') was an Orthodox Jewish congregation that for over 120 years was located in a historic building at 60–64 Norfolk Street between Grand and Broome Streets on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City. It was the first Eastern European congregation founded in New York City and the oldest Russian Jewish Orthodox congregation in the United States. Founded in 1852 by Rabbi Abraham Joseph Ash as Beth Hamedrash, the congregation split in 1859, with the rabbi and most of the members renaming their congregation Beth Hamedrash Hagodol. The congregation's president and a small number of the members eventually formed the nucleus of Kahal Adath Jeshurun, also known as the Eldridge Street Synagogue. Rabbi Jacob Joseph, the first and only Chief Rabbi of New York City, led the congregation from 1888 to 1902. Rabbi Ephraim Oshry, one of the few European Jewish legal decisors to survive the Holocaust, led the congregation from 1952 to 2003. The congregation's building, a Gothic Revival structure built in 1850 as the Norfolk Street Baptist Church and purchased in 1885, was one of the largest synagogues on the Lower East Side. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. In the late 20th century the congregation dwindled and was unable to maintain the building, which had been damaged by

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