Temple B'nai Israel

In 1903, fire consumed the synagogue of Natchez's Jewish congregation — the oldest in Mississippi, established in 1840. The Methodist congregation offered temporary sanctuary. Affluent white Christians donated to the rebuild fund. Within two years, the community had raised a new temple. Architect H. A. Overbeck, who had previously designed a synagogue in Dallas, laid the cornerstone in July 1904. The dedication on March 25, 1905, drew Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise of Cincinnati and more than 600 attendees. The Beaux-Arts building featured arched stained glass windows, a central dome, and an ornate ark in Italian marble. It seated 450 with a balcony. By the 1870s, Temple B'nai Israel had become the largest Jewish congregation in Mississippi. One-third of all mercantile businesses in Natchez belonged to members of this temple — a measure of the community's reach in a city built on cotton trade and the Mississippi River. In 1866, German immigrant Samuel Ullman sought for the congregation to adopt Jewish Reform traditions that would include women and children, and his idea eventually won out. From 1899 to 1913, Rabbi Seymour Bottigheimer from Virginia led the congregation, providing the first stable rabbi. The building at 213 South Commerce Street was part of the 1998 exhibition *From Alsace to America: Discovering Southern Jewish Heritage*, sponsored by the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience. It has been a Mississippi Landmark since 2002. By 2010, only around a dozen Jewish residents lived in Natchez. Tours available by appointment.