Please visit my Facebook Page where I am now posting articles, links and photographs relating to American synagogue architecture, Jewish Community history, Jewish genealogy & related topics. I post there several times a week and include many wonderful photographs. While I will not be updating this blog, there are a lot of great synagogue photographs here that I will leave "up & running". Thanks to everyone who visited the page in the past and those who may visit it in the future. Be sure to click "like" when visiting my Facebook Page. Many thanks.

Julian H. Preisler, Author - Facebook Page

To those of you that are following my Blog I would like to say thank you for your interest and support. I have decided to close down my blog and concentrate on my postings and photos on my professional Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/jhpreisler and my Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/Researcher25419. I encourage you to visit these two sites and click "like" and "Follow" to keep up with my posts. I am working on several projects now and will be postings photos and updates on both Facebook and Twitter. I have one book in the works that will be published by Fonthill Media later this year and it will be a book of photographs and history relating to the synagogues of Central and Western Pennsylvania. I am also researching the existence of Holocaust memorials and museums throughout North America and hope to put together an eBook with the results. I have also started work on two eBooks of synagogue photographs and history. One will cover the "Buckeye State" of Ohio where I used to live and the other will cover synagogues in small towns located all over the USA. Again thanks to everyone for your interest in my blog. I do hope that you will consider following me on Facebook and Twitter.

It has been a while since I've posted on my blog mostly because I've been posting photographs and short articles on my Facebook Page. Have a look and click "like" to follow my posts. Topics include American synagogue architecture, Jewish genealogy, local American Jewish history, historic preservation and other architecture & history related topics. https://www.facebook.com/jhpreisler - I'm currently working on two books. The first will be published by Fonthill Media and will be a book of photographs and history of synagogues in Central and Western Pennsylvania. Focus will be on Pittsburgh, Harrisburg and the many small cities and towns that either currently have synagogues or those that once had a Jewish Community and synagogue. My other project is to identify and collect images of Holocaust memorials, museums and educational centers all across North America. Covering the USA, Canada, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, so far I have indentified 310 memorials, etc. and have about 150 more to add, mostly for "town specific" memorials in NY and NJ. I plan to self-publish when the research is completed.

Since it has been too long since I posted any photos here, I will include a few related to the new Pennsylvania book. First is a photograph of the former Congregation B'nai Israel in Pittsburgh dedicated in 1923. The photo was taken some years ago when the building was still used as a Jewish house of worship. It is now the Urban League of Pittsburgh Charter School. Due to a decline in the Jewish population of the neighborhood, the Conservative congregation merged with a few other Jewish congregations in the area and formed a new congregation, Adat Shalom, in the suburb of Fox Chapel. Here is their website: http://www.adatshalompgh.org/ Their former synagogue is one of the two most beautiful synagogues in Pittsburgh. The other one being Rodeph Shalom Congregation which is a large and very active Reform congregation located in the Oakland section of the city.

 

Now on to Altoona, Pennsylvania. There are two active congregations in the city. One of them is Temple Beth Israel, a Reform congregation formed in the late 19th century as the Mountain City Hebrew Reformed Congregation. Their present synagogue dates to 1927. The congregation became Temple Beth Israel in 1922. You can learn more about the congregation here: http://templebethisrael.net/