New York City, New York, United States
It is written, “Love the Lord your God and serve Him with all your heart.”
—Bible, Deuteronomy 11:3
Temple Emanu-El is the world’s largest Reform Jewish synagogue, accommodating 2,500 worshippers inside the Moorish and art deco interior embellished with handsome mosaics. The exterior limestone walls with Romanesque Revival detailing suggest a building from the medieval period rather than one built in 1928 to serve a growing progressive-minded community that had also assimilated Conservative Jews from Eastern Europe (in the 1930s)—a blending of new, old, West, and East. Today, the “spirit of the congregation” is one of “inclusion, flexibility, and sensitivity to the needs and desires” of worshippers.
If you seek a place that can lift your heart and help you find meaning or would enjoy attending a service in a beautiful, welcoming synagogue, visit Temple Emanu-El. It is located at One East Sixty-Fifth Street, in New York City’s Upper East Side, across from Central Park, an easy walk from several subway trains and bus lines.
Attend a service and experience the power of prayer embraced by this congregation. Perform a traditional ritual or one of your own urging, as allowed and encouraged here.
The Temple Emanu-El complex includes the smaller Beth-El Chapel, a six-story religious school. The temple also has a world-class collection of Judaic art that provides spiritual succor through its aesthetic, social, and religious context.