Temple Beth Israel Preservation Society
The Temple Beth Israel Preservation Society is a nonprofit, multi-cultural center committed to preserving the unique Jewish heritage of Northeastern Connecticut. It is housed in a historic building that was constructed to serve as a place of worship and built primarily by Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and resistance fighters who settled on farms in the surrounding communities, along with local Jewish business people.
Our goal is to continue to serve as a Jewish house of worship welcoming all who seek to observe and celebrate Jewish ritual and traditions while honoring the founders of the Temple Beth Israel community and, in particular, that generation of immigrant Jewish farmers who spoke Yiddish, observed Jewish rituals and traditions, educated their children and celebrated their new American lives in this historic synagogue.
We seek to create an archive documenting the history of the community through books, letters, photographs, oral histories, and other historical artifacts that bear witness to the remarkable contributions of this particular Jewish community to life in Northeastern Connecticut and to collaborate with schools, colleges, cultural institutions and religious and civic organizations on creating valuable and unique learning opportunities.
We wish to honor the building’s founders by creating a setting in which to teach the lessons of the Holocaust by bringing awareness to human rights struggles around the world in order to educate, inspire, and identify the shared human values of people of all backgrounds and cultures. We also hope to enhance local cultural, educational and social life by serving as an interfaith resource for the community to celebrate the arts, local history and the region’s ethnically and culturally diverse communities.
