B’nai Israel Synagogue, Rochester

Small Jewish communities arose at the turn of the twentieth century in several southern Minnesota market towns. In each, Jews gathered for religious purposes. But it was only in Rochester that a formal synagogue, B’nai Israel, was established. The founding of Mayo Clinic in 1905 created a need for a local congregation that could serve Jewish patients. After almost a century of holding worship services in former residences, B’nai Israel built its first synagogue building in 2008.

The first Jews to settle permanently in Rochester arrived in about 1900. Most of them were junk dealers, peddlers, and merchants. Fourteen men founded the Hebrew Congregation of Rochester, Minnesota, in 1910. The congregation incorporated in 1917 as B’nai (Sons of) Israel Synagogue. It had twenty-five member families.

Jews were among those who came to Rochester from all over the country seeking treatment at Mayo Clinic after its founding in 1905. B’nai Israel members accepted responsibility for them by comforting family members, providing kosher meals, and offering Yiddish translation services.

In 1918, B’nai Israel bought a two-story house on the corner of Fifth Street and First Avenue Northeast. Worship services were held downstairs. The rabbi and his family lived upstairs. Israel Becker was the first rabbi hired, in 1923.

An estimated twenty-five rabbis served the Rochester community over the next forty years. Congregants came from nearby Stewartville, Eyota, Chatfield, Kasson, Preston, Spring Valley, and St. Charles. In 1927, Rochester’s Jewish population was ninety-six.

During the 1920s, Mayo Clinic charged a $100 deposit for patients who were “Jews, actors, and other indigent types.” The deposit was subtracted from their final bills. B’nai Israel members provided the funds for those who could not pay upfront. The clinic withdrew the deposit requirement in 1927. It also hired a Jewish medical social worker. This took some of the burden off the local Jewish community. Mayo Clinic ended the service in 1956.

By 1944, the thirty-five member families of B’nai Israel had outgrown the house on Fifth Street. They bought the larger Knowlton house, located two blocks from the clinic. It held a seventy-two-seat synagogue and four-room religious school. It also housed chaplaincy offices and a community center.

Jewish medical staff who lived in town for short periods enlarged Rochester’s small Jewish population. While not all Rochester Jews were members of the synagogue, up to two hundred people attended High Holidays services in the 1950s at the Mayo Civic Auditorium. Official membership of B’nai Israel was forty families in 1952.

The same year, the Jewish service organization B’nai B’rith (Sons of the Covenant) International joined with B’nai Israel to create the B’nai B’rith Center of Rochester. The center served the spiritual and practical needs of Mayo Clinic’s Jewish patients and their families.

The two groups split the salary and expenses for a rabbi. They agreed that he would serve half-time as spiritual leader of the synagogue and half-time as the Jewish chaplain for Mayo Clinic. Over eight thousand visitors used the center during one documented year in the 1950s.

The 1970s brought many changes to B’nai Israel. First, in 1975, the B’nai Brith Center closed its doors when B’nai B’rith International ended its support. B’nai Israel, B’nai B’rith’s Upper Midwest district, and other Jewish agencies continued to provide chaplaincy and social services to the estimated thirty thousand Jewish patients seen annually at Mayo Clinic and local hospitals.

Second, after almost sixty-five years of leadership by Orthodox rabbis, in 1974 B’nai Israel affiliated with the liberal Reform movement of Judaism. Third, in 1977 B’nai Israel bought a former Mormon meetinghouse at 621 Second Street Southwest. The congregation then numbered ninety families.

In 2008, B’nai Israel commissioned a fifteen-thousand-square-foot facility to take the place of the old Mormon meetinghouse. Joan Soranno of HGA Architects created the award-winning, two-story building. It was Rochester’s first purpose-built synagogue. The light-filled sanctuary seated 150, and an adjacent social hall expanded seating capacity to 250.

In 2013, B’nai Israel membership was 110 families and individuals. Some lived in Albert Lea, Mankato, Owatonna, Red Wing, Winona, and other southern Minnesota cities. B’nai Israel’s mission has persisted since its founding: serving local residents and Mayo Clinic patients.