Central Synagogue’s parent congregations, Shaar Hashomayim and Ahawath Chesed were founded in 1839 and 1846 respectively by German-speaking immigrants on the Lower East Side. By 1870, the membership of Ahawath Chesed prospered, grew and moved uptown to Lexington Avenue at 55th Street.
The 140 families of Ahawath Chesed commissioned Henry Fernbach, New York’s first prominent Jewish architect, to design its synagogue, which seated more than 1,400 individuals. At its dedication in 1872, Rabbi Adolph Heubsch described the building as “a house of worship in evidence of the high degree of development only possible under a condition of freedom.”
In 1898 Shaar Hashomayim merged with Ahawath Chesed and became known as Central Synagogue in 1917.
Central Synagogue is the oldest synagogue in continuous use in New York City and one of the leading Reform congregations in the country. Currently, Central Synagogue’s thriving community comprises 2,600 member families.
Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl was invested as a cantor in 1999 and also ordained as a rabbi in 2001 by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York.
Rabbi Buchdahl serves as the senior rabbi of Central Synagogue, the first woman to lead the large Reform congregation in its 180-year history. Rabbi Buchdahl first joined Central Synagogue as senior cantor in 2006. In 2014, she was chosen by the congregation to be senior rabbi.
Born in Korea to a Jewish American father and a Korean Buddhist mother, Rabbi Buchdahl is the first Asian American to be ordained as cantor or rabbi in North America. — Summed from their self-description.
