Beth Joseph Synagogue

Beth Joseph Synagogue
Beth Joseph Synagogue
	The synagogue, in 2008
Religion
Affiliation	Judaism
Rite	Nusach Ashkenaz
Ecclesiastical or organisational status	Synagogue; Jewish museum;
Status	Active (summer only)
Location
Location	59 Lake Street, Tupper Lake, New York 12986
Country	United States
	Location in the Adirondacks, New York
Coordinates	44°13′29″N 74°27′55″W / 44.22472°N 74.46528°W
Architecture
Type	Synagogue architecture
Style	Italianate
Established	c. 1890s (as a congregation)
Completed	1905
Materials	Clapboard; timber frame
Website
	bethjosephtupperlake.org
	Beth Joseph Synagogue
	U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Area	less than one acre
NRHP reference No.	88001441
Added to NRHP	September 1, 1988

Beth Joseph Synagogue is a Jewish congregation and historic synagogue, located in Tupper Lake, Franklin County, New York, in the United States. The synagogue is open only in the summer months; and it houses a small Jewish museum. The congregation has traditionally practiced in the Ashkenazi rite.

History

As a congregation, Beth Joseph was established in the late 1800s by Yiddish–speaking Eastern European Jewish immigrants, including those from Russia and Lithuania, who were peddlers, and wealthy German Jews from New York City, who took summer vacations in the area.^[2] By 1899 the Jewish community acquired land to build a synagogue and in the summer of that year, before construction began, a major fire devastated many of buildings in Tupper Lake. The new synagogue building, completed in 1906, was part of a building resurgence.^[3]

Decling membership forced the synagogue to close in 1963,^[3]^[2] and it was restored and reopened from the mid-1980s, for summer services only.^[3]

It is the oldest congregation in the Adirondack Mountains and is the only surviving early synagogue in the region.^[4] The synagogue building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.^[1]

Architecture

The synagogue building was built in 1906, and is a 2+1⁄2-story, three-bay by five-bay, vernacular Italianate style frame building. It is sheathed in clapboard and has a false front that hides a steep gable roof. The front façade features a "sun dial" arch and rose window, round arched windows, and square corner towers.^[5]^{: 2, 4–5}

The synagogue appears to have been influenced by the Italianate and Romanesque Revival Wooster Street Synagogue in Lower Manhattan, which, like Beth Joseph, featured a peaked parapet at the center of a tripartite facade with round-arched doors and a round window in the center. This style had become a popular prototype for synagogues. The exterior's horizontal clapboard siding contrasted with a characteristically Adirondack interior arrangement of pine and hemlock strips in diagonal, herringbone and perpendicular patterns.^[4]

References

1 2 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
1 2 Chiat, Marilyn J. (1997). "Beth Joseph Synagogue". America's Religious Architecture: Sacred Places for Every Community. John Wiley & Sons. p. 78. ISBN 978-0-471-14502-8. Retrieved February 4, 2024 – via Google Books.
1 2 3 "Beth Joseph". Synagogue360. 2013. Retrieved February 4, 2024.
1 2 Svenson, Sally E. (2006). Adirondack Churches: A History of Design and Building. Keeseville, New York: Adirondack Architectural Heritage. pp. 178–81. ISBN 0967038839.
↑ Hyde, Gilbert F. and Garofalini, Lynn (December 2004). National Register of Historic Places Registration: New York SP Joseph, Beth, Synagogue. National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved October 29, 2025.{{cite report}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) (Downloading may be slow.)