Temple B'nai Israel has been a fixed point for Jewish life on the far west side of Aurora, Illinois, since 1961, when the congregation moved into the present building on N Edgelawn Drive. Founded in 1904 by roughly twenty families who gathered to pray together on or near Rosh Hashanah that year, the congregation has grown, contracted, weathered a world war and a long economic depression, and rebuilt itself more than once. Today Temple B'nai Israel describes itself as a small congregation of about one hundred members that welcomes Jews of every denomination - Traditional, Conservative, and Reform - along with interfaith families and spiritual seekers. It is one of the few synagogues in the western Chicago suburbs where a Conservative Egalitarian Friday night and Saturday morning service sits alongside a Reform Shabbat Chaverim service in the same month's calendar, and where a single congregation makes room for both traditional Hebrew school preparation and an active interfaith Tikkun Olam agenda.
From Twenty Families in 1904 to a Hundred Members Today
The congregation's earliest documented assembly, by the centennial history's reckoning, was a gathering of those twenty families in Aurora in 1904, then a manufacturing city of about twenty-five thousand people on the Fox River. They met on the first day of Rosh Hashanah in Diveky Hall in downtown Aurora. In January 1905 the first Torah was dedicated in that hall, with the names of attendees inscribed in the scroll by their initials and auctioned off to raise $150. Within a year the services had moved upstairs over Podolsky's Clothing Store to a room soon nicknamed Herring Hall for the after-services refreshments. In those years the group was known as B'nai Azrohom, "Sons of Abraham," though Aurora city directories over the next decades sometimes listed the congregation under a different name.
The first contracted rabbi arrived in 1912 to serve as the community's kosher butcher (schochet) and religious teacher. He was followed by Rabbi Shapiro in 1914, whose first name has been lost to memory. The two probably traveled from Chicago on weekends; there is no record of either living in Aurora.
A turning point came on the first day of Rosh Hashanah in 1916, when the owner of the rented hall in downtown Aurora told the worshippers they had to wrap up early because he had booked a dance for that evening. The angry reaction of those present led to a movement, initially led by congregant Charles Sheer, to form a permanent organization. In December 1923 that organization, by then called the Young Men's Hebrew Association of Aurora, received a state charter as a non-profit. The women's organization was older still: the Ladies Hebrew Aid Society - later the Sisterhood - had actually been founded in 1903, a full year before the congregation's first recorded prayer service.
The years after the charter were dominated by the campaign to build a permanent home. A parcel was acquired on Lincoln Avenue in 1923 for $8,500 including the existing house, and contracts were signed in 1926. By the end of 1927 the Lincoln Avenue building was dedicated. The Building Committee, led by Dr. Samuel Klein and including J.D. Annenberg, J. Swimmer, Morris Kuhn, Max Goldsmith, Charles Sheer, Sam Fridiker, Lewis Cohen, Irving Lisberg, Harry Aront, and Morris Podolsky, raised a total of about $48,000 for the project, including the lot and furnishings, leaving a mortgage of about $17,800. Former Aurora mayor George W. Alschuler chaired the finance committee. Alschuler's brother Sam had been the Democratic candidate for Governor of Illinois in 1900.
The next two decades tested the congregation. Rabbi Nathan Rubenstein served into the late 1920s as both spiritual leader and community shochet. During the Depression Rabbi Irvin Melamed saw his monthly salary cut from $300 to $150 over several years, and Rubenstein's $25 a week was reduced to $15. In April 1933 the Aurora, Elgin, and Joliet Jewish communities held a mass meeting to protest the persecution of German Jews. In October 1933 the Board voted not to renew Rabbi Melamed's contract; a month later they were compelled to offer him a one-year contract at a 44 percent pay cut, which was accepted. Within five years, a Reform congregation briefly organized in the Leland Hotel in downtown Aurora, drawing some members away, but it did not last long. The mortgage on the Lincoln Avenue building was paid off and ceremonially burned in 1937, in a gathering largely underwritten by Albert Hirsh, publisher of the Beacon News and chair of the original Temple Building Committee.
By the late 1950s the Lincoln Avenue building was too small for the growing congregation. Building Committee plans were drawn up for a much larger Temple on the far west side of Aurora. Committee member and longtime community leader Sidney Podolsky insisted on including the stained-glass windows from the old building in the new sanctuary, despite opposition. The windows were removed, stored in the boiler room of the new building, and reinstalled when the sanctuary was completed. The present building on N Edgelawn Drive was dedicated in 1961 and is shared today by the roughly one hundred households that make up Temple B'nai Israel.
The Bimah, the Twelve Tribes, and Surviving Stained Glass
The bimah at the center of the Temple's sanctuary holds both the heritage of the old Lincoln Avenue synagogue and a more recent artistic statement. The Aron Hakodesh, where the Torah scrolls are kept, is topped by an Eternal Light and surrounded by stained glass designed and fabricated by Conrad Schmitt Studio of Milwaukee for the new sanctuary in the 1970s. At the center of the design, a Tree of Life appears to grow around the ark itself.
The twelve stained-glass windows in the sanctuary depict the Twelve Tribes of Israel. They were created in the late 1920s by the painter Todros Geller, who had moved to Chicago in 1913 and studied for five years at the Art Institute of Chicago. Geller, who is sometimes called the "dean" of Chicago's Jewish artists, went on to exhibit widely, including one-man shows in the United States and Canada, and his work is represented in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of Modern Art, among many others. Geller died in 1949.
The twelve windows depict, beginning at the lower left-hand corner and proceeding clockwise: Dan, Naftali, Gad, Asher, Menaseh/Ephraim, Benjamin, Reuven, Simon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. The single window representing Manasseh and Ephraim acknowledges that Joseph's two sons were given tribal status in their grandfather Jacob's blessing.
Above the entrance wall, a clerestory of horizontal stained-glass windows depicts the cycle of the Jewish year in order, beginning at the right with Rosh Hashanah and continuing through Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Simchat Torah, Hanukkah, Tu B'Shevat, Purim, Pesach, Lag Ba'Omer, Shavuot, and Shabbat. Together they offer a visual calendar of the year that unfolds in the prayer book.
Of the older stained glass, Rabbi Friedman notes that the original plans for the new building omitted the windows entirely, and that it was thanks to Podolsky's stubborn advocacy that they survived to be reinstalled when the Edgelawn sanctuary was completed in 1971.
Two Styles of Shabbat Under One Roof
Temple B'nai Israel holds three regular Shabbat services each week. Friday evening services begin at 7:30 pm either in person at the Temple or via Zoom. Saturday morning Conservative Egalitarian services begin at 9:00 am at the Temple, with Shacharit beginning at 9:30 am. Once a month, a Reform Shabbat Chaverim service is held at 10:30 am, led by Rabbinic Aide Cindy Michelassi and using the Reform prayer book Mishkan T'filah.
Both prayerbooks used at Temple B'nai Israel include full English translation, many passages transliterated in English letters, and side notes. The Conservative Siddur Lev Shalem is used on Friday night and Saturday morning, while the Reform Mishkan T'filah is used at the monthly Chaverim service. All services are egalitarian, the congregation counts all Jewish adults toward a minyan, and both men and women may participate fully. Men who enter the sanctuary are asked to wear a kipah or head covering; women are asked to cover their heads when coming up to the bimah for an honor. Jewish men are expected to wear a tallit at morning services and on Yom Kippur; women may choose to do so. Tallit is not worn at night except on Yom Kippur.
First-time visitors are asked to call the office at (630) 892-2450 so the congregation can expect them. Services are held for every festival and holiday of the Jewish year. Children are welcome in the sanctuary. The gabbai, who distributes honors throughout the service, explains procedures to anyone who is unfamiliar with the synagogue routine and walks them through the Ark openings, carrying the Torah, aliyot, hagbahah, and gelilah.
In addition to the main services, members gather each Friday night for dinner, often with a Shabbat on the Road service held at a member's home and followed by a kosher potluck. The annual community seder each Passover brings the wider congregation together in the same spirit.
Monday and Tuesday Nights with the Rabbi
Rabbi Edward Friedman teaches two weekly adult education classes. On Mondays from 7:00 to 8:30 pm, the Rabbinic Judaism class meets on Zoom. The class chooses Jewish texts, generally in Hebrew with a free English translation by the rabbi. Past sessions have studied the Book of First Maccabees, selections from Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, and an overview of rabbinic texts. The class is currently working through the 8th-century Midrash Pirkei d'Rabbi Eliezer, which retells biblical stories with rabbinic embellishment. Newcomers are welcome to join at any time.
On Tuesdays from 7:00 to 8:30 pm, Rabbi Friedman teaches Basic Judaism at the Temple or on Zoom. The introductory class covers the sources of Jewish tradition, the calendar and holidays, Shabbat observance, the synagogue and prayer, keeping kosher, and various other traditions of Jewish life. It is open to Jews who want additional learning and to non-Jewish partners and friends of other faiths exploring Judaism. The class is also a prerequisite for those seeking conversion to Judaism. Rabbi Friedman has prepared candidates for conversion to Judaism since his own seminary days.
The temple also sponsors Hebrew courses at the basic, intermediate, and advanced levels, open to participants of all faiths age ten and up. Each course runs for twenty classroom hours; exceptions can be made for younger children attending with their parents. A book club meets through the Hadassah chapter (see below).
Hebrew School to Bar Mitzvah and Confirmation
The Temple's Board of Education runs religious school programs for children from Hebrew with Prayers and Bible through Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah, and Confirmation. Both Judaica studies and Hebrew classes are taught, and Rabbi Friedman is available for tutoring and individual study. The curriculum introduces children to Jewish values and ethics, customary traditions, Israel, synagogue life, and the holidays.
Through confirmation classes, students also explore their shared responsibility for the future of the Jewish people in Israel and throughout the world. Class sizes are small, and families are encouraged to participate in the program alongside their children.
For Bar and Bat Mitzvah preparation, Rabbi Friedman has worked with students since he himself was a teenager. He has also prepared conversion candidates since his years at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where he earned a Master's degree and ordination. In 2002 the Seminary awarded him an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree in recognition of more than twenty-five years of service in the rabbinate.
Tikkun Olam and the Wider Aurora Community
The Temple's social action program is gathered around the principle of Tikkun Olam, repairing the world. Recent projects have included Mitzvah Day, participation in the Aurora Pride Parade, Rotary volunteering, and shifts at the Interfaith Food Pantry. Rabbi Friedman has represented Temple B'nai Israel in annual interfaith clergy efforts - in 2024 he and other Aurora clergy from Wesley United Methodist, Orchard Church, New England Congregational UCC, and other area congregations took part in an interfaith service before Aurora's annual Pride Parade.
Throughout the year the Temple brings the wider Aurora community into its social action efforts. The Friday night dinners are often potlucks, and the annual community seder draws members and friends from across the western suburbs of Chicago. The vision statement published on the Temple's About page commits the congregation to "fostering interfaith relations and support of social action and community efforts" as one of its core commitments.
Donations to the Temple can be directed to several named funds: the Rabbi Agress Scholarship Fund, which helps Temple students attend Jewish summer camp or a program in Israel; the Torah Repair Fund, which maintains the five Torah scrolls in the Temple's arks; the Tribute Fund, which pays for the beautification of the building and bima; the Prayer Book Fund, which supports the purchase of prayer books or mahzorim in memory or in honor of a loved one; the Library Fund, which supports the Podolsky Library and a children's library; and the Special Board of Education Fund, which helps defray the cost of the religious school. A Tree of Life, memorial plaques on the chapel wall, and Timeless Tribute seat plaques offer additional ways to honor loved ones at the Temple.
The Rabbi's Blog: Purim, Rosh Hashanah, and the New Year for Animals
Words from the Rabbi, the Temple's online blog, is written entirely by Rabbi Friedman and is widely circulated. The essays consider the meaning of the High Holidays, current affairs, and Jewish thought on topics ranging from interfaith relations to the welfare of animals. In a recent post titled "Thoughts on Purim after October 7th," Rabbi Friedman reflected on what it means to celebrate a joyous holiday in a generation that has seen the worst single-day loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust. He argues that Purim's narrative - of deliverance that comes even when God seems hidden - gives the Jewish people "defiant faith" that life and joy can continue in spite of fear. Recalling that the Talmud understands Esther's name to echo the Hebrew verb for hiding, he writes that "when God hides His face," the certainty remains that He will again intervene and save. "Yes, we will celebrate Purim this year with joy outwardly, even if our heart is broken for those who have been lost and those who are suffering and those being held hostage."
On Rosh Hashanah, Rabbi Friedman walks the congregation through the apparently counterintuitive theme of joy on the Day of Judgment. Drawing on Nehemiah 8 and the moment when the Israelites gathered to hear the Torah read aloud after returning from exile, he points to the line "the joy of the Lord is your strength." The essay pushes back against the notion that joy has to wait for better times: "The Torah doesn't say, 'Maybe joy isn't appropriate this year.' The Torah says: 'The joy of God is your strength.'" Apples and honey, sweet tzimmes, kugel, honey cake, taiglach, apple cake, gefilte fish, and chicken soup: the Rosh Hashanah table is part of that joy, "one of two brisket holidays on the calendar, along with Passover."
In "Thoughts on Our Forbears," written for the season of Kever Avot, Rabbi Friedman explains the custom of visiting the graves of departed loved ones before the High Holidays. He describes the practice at his first congregation in Dallas - broadcasting a brief service across a cemetery's sound system while congregants stood by their family graves - and notes how the custom has become harder to observe in an age when families are spread across many cities. The Temple gathers at Lincoln Memorial Park each year for a brief Kever Avot service to accommodate members who cannot reach their own family plots.
"Thoughts on the New Year for Animals" explores the Mishnah's designation of Rosh Chodesh Elul as the New Year for the tithe of cattle. Drawing on his own chapter in the volume The Observant Life, Rabbi Friedman argues for an expanded observance that recognizes the Jewish teaching of tzaar baalei chayim, the obligation not to cause suffering to living creatures. He floats the idea of a Tu B'Shvat-style seder for the first of Elul, with four cups of wine corresponding to different categories of animals.
"Thoughts on Interfaith Relations in Practice" recounts the rabbi's long collaboration with Dr. Amy-Jill Levine of Vanderbilt Divinity School at the Greater Carolinas Association of Rabbis' Wildacres Interfaith Institute. The piece rejects both the missionary aims of some Christian engagements with Judaism and the antisemitic reactions of some Christian critics of Jewish scholarship. "We encourage people to recognize that there are many paths to the one God we believe in, and from those who find divinity in other places, we also have much to learn."
Sisterhood, Hadassah, and the Shabbat Table
The Sisterhood, descended from the Ladies Hebrew Aid Society founded in 1903, continues as one of the Temple's central lay organizations. In its early decades it raised funds through dances, picnics, raffles, and carnivals for the support of the young Temple; acted as a social agency for the Jewish community; and provided monetary support to families in need. Its members would often make house calls to assess the situation of neighbors in need before voting any assistance.
Temple B'nai Israel also hosts a local chapter of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America. The chapter runs a monthly book club and raises funds for Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. Many members are Hadassah life members, including several men who are associate members. The Temple's youth attend Camp Young Judaea, a Jewish summer camp in Wisconsin that Hadassah promotes.
Across the year the Temple's calendar includes Friday night dinners, holiday celebrations, social events, movie nights, Shabbat on the Road services held at members' homes, and other gatherings. An archive project started by Edith Katz in the 1980s and formalized by the Board in 1999 collects documents, artifacts, photos, and oral histories of the congregation's first century.
Home Prayers, Holiday Guides, and Audio Recordings
Members and visitors who want help observing Shabbat or major holidays at home can find audio recordings and explanatory texts on the Temple's Home Prayers, Chanukah, and Passover Haggadah pages. Rabbi Friedman has recorded guided versions of the candle blessing, Shalom Aleichem, the Friday night Kiddush, Hamotzi, Havdalah, the Chanukah blessings, Hanerot Halalu, and Maoz Tzur. The Passover page includes a full Haggadah text along with audio tracks for each of the fifteen steps of the seder.
The Home Prayers page explains the theology behind each ritual - why we light two candles for Shabbat, why the challah is covered during the recitation of kiddush, why two loaves sit on the table to recall the double portion of manna, and how the blessing over washing the hands recalls the altar in the Temple in Jerusalem. For Havdalah, the page sets out a practical list of what is needed on the table: a cup of wine or grape juice, a box of spices (or even a teabag), and a braided candle.
Visiting Temple B'nai Israel
Temple B'nai Israel sits at 400 N Edgelawn Drive on the far west side of Aurora, Illinois. The office can be reached at (630) 892-2450 or office@temple-bnai-israel.org; the rabbi can be reached at rabbi@temple-bnai-israel.org; and general information requests can be sent to info@temple-bnai-israel.org.
Friday night services begin at 7:30 pm in person or on Zoom; the Saturday morning Conservative Egalitarian service begins at 9:00 am; and the monthly Reform Shabbat Chaverim service begins at 10:30 am. The Monday evening Rabbinic Judaism class and the Tuesday evening Basic Judaism class both meet from 7:00 to 8:30 pm. First-time visitors are asked to call the office ahead so the congregation can expect them.
Those who wish to follow the Temple's regular programming or news from the Rabbi can subscribe to The Scribe, the congregation's weekly newsletter, and follow the Temple on Facebook at facebook.com/TempleBnaiIsrael, on X, and on LinkedIn. Online giving, including directed gifts to the Temple's named funds, is available through the donate page on the Temple's site.