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When Boise’s new synagogue brought the whole town together • Idaho Capital Sun [1]
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Date: 2025-09-13
In May 1949, more than 150 people crowded into a modest new synagogue on Bannock Street in Boise. They came not only from the small Jewish community, but also from churches across the city.
Leaders in attendance included the Rev. Hartzell Cobbs of First Christian Church, the Rev. Herald Gardner of St. Michael’s Episcopal, the Rev. Ray Dunn of First Methodist, the Rev. Robert Ray of First Baptist, Jesse McQueen representing the Latter-day Saints, and Chaplain L. W. Backman of the Idaho State Prison.
The Rev. Cobbs, then president of the Boise Ministerial Association, prayed that the new temple would receive “the highest blessing of the Lord” as its members worked in the “service of God.” It was, as the Idaho Statesman reported at the time, “a milestone in the adventure in faith.”
That milestone is worth remembering. It reminds us that interfaith solidarity is not new to Idaho — it is part of the state’s history.
The Jewish community that built Temple Ahavath Israel in 1949 was small, just twenty members. Yet with donations of money, materials, and labor — from Jews and non-Jews alike — they raised $10,000 to complete Boise’s second synagogue. The achievement earned national recognition in the United Synagogue Review in New York, which praised Boise’s example.
This was not the first time Jewish life in Idaho was publicly noted. As early as 1892, the Statesman reported that Jewish-owned businesses across Boise closed for Yom Kippur, and seventy-five Jews gathered in the Odd Fellows Hall to pray. Three years later, when Congregation Beth Israel incorporated, one of its leaders was Moses Alexander, who would later become governor of Idaho and the first practicing Jewish governor in the United States. That same year, a rabbi addressed the Methodist Episcopal Church in Boise — a conversation grounded in fellowship across traditions.
On Aug. 30, 1896, Beth Israel, Idaho’s first synagogue, was dedicated at State and Eleventh. Shortly after, the Statesman advertised the High Holiday services, treating Jewish observance as part of the city’s public fabric.
During World War II, when Ahavath Israel began holding services for Jewish servicemen stationed at Gowen Field and Mountain Home Air Base, space quickly grew tight. The congregation turned to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which hosted Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services in its downtown chapel.
The pattern repeated again in 1961 in Pocatello, where the whole community laid the cornerstone for Temple Emanuel. City officials, the chairman of the Pocatello Ministerial Association, and the mayor of Alameda all attended. One speaker urged that instead of “bigger armies and more destructive weapons,” humanity would be better served by building houses of worship.
These stories show something consistent about Idaho. Time and again, small Jewish communities were met with open doors. Protestant clergy, LDS leaders, and elected officials alike showed up not only in times of crisis but in moments of celebration.
Today, when headlines about antisemitism, civil division, and xenophobia dominate national news, it is easy to forget that pluralism is not new. Idaho’s history offers powerful lessons for our country now. For generations, Idahoans have known something that still matters: showing up for others across difference, working together even while disagreeing about important questions, doesn’t weaken a community’s identity — it strengthens it.
The dedication of a synagogue was not only a Jewish event, but an Idaho event.
Seventy-six years after that day in 1949, it is worth asking: What would it look like to show up for one another across lines of difference today? What can we still learn from the spirit that led Protestants, Latter-day Saints and Jews to stand together on Bannock Street, offering shared blessings for a new sacred space?
It’s not nostalgia — it’s a legacy worth carrying forward.
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