Boston Center for Jewish Culture
As the 19th Century ended and the 20th began, Jews flocked to America's shores in record numbers. The promise of a new life, away from persecution and pogroms, was the impetus for our parents, grandparents and great grandparents to give up all that was familiar and to begin again.
At the center of Boston's Beacon Hill, a group of immigrants from Vilna, Lithuania, built their house of worship. Modest in size, but an architectural gem, the synagogue functioned for many years as a vibrant, active congregation. As the immigrant generation moved from city to suburb, the congregation eventually waned. Nearly 100 years later, in the last decade of the 20th Century, a group of dedicated volunteers began a visionary effort to reclaim and restore the building, incorporating it into Boston's contemporary Jewish community. The Boston's Center for Jewish Culture, Inc. (BCJC) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to restore the Vilna Shul and rededicate it as a center for exploring the rich traditions of the American Jewish experience through exhibits and programs.
The Boston's Center for Jewish Culture - http://www.vilnashul.com - is a non-profit organization whose mission is to restore the Vilna Shul and rededicate it as a center for exploring the rich traditions of the American Jewish experience through exhibits and programs.
The Boston's Center for Jewish Culture has succeeded in purchasing and is now restoring the once-abandoned Vilna Shul for use as Boston's historic Jewish museum and as a gathering place for community and cultural events. The Shul is located on the north slope of Beacon Hill, adjacent to what was Boston's West End, a vibrant, largely Jewish immigrant neighborhood of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that was lost to urban renewal roughly thirty years ago. The city's only surviving immigrant-era synagogue, the Vilna Shul is just steps from Boston's famed Freedom Trail. The Shul serves as the perfect symbol of the synthesis that is American Jewish culture. Its architecture reflects our history; its programs explore our future.
There could be no better opportunity to rescue and restore an historic building and to honor the purposes for which it was built:
as a house of learning. Serving individuals, families, neighborhood and Jewish community organizations, tour groups, and local area schools
as a center of community. Programs incorporate traditional Jewish values of learning, ethics and social justice and seek to incorporate multiple facets of Judaism - including the spiritual, the historical, the communal, and the ritual. The building is a gathering place, with neighborhood and Jewish community organizations and institutions welcomed and encouraged to use the Center for meetings and special events. These ongoing educational experiences will build community, strengthening bonds among Jews and increasing understanding between Jews and non-Jews.
as it honors Jewish life in Boston. With rich and varied participatory programs, a restored and beautiful physical setting and a wide offering of visual exhibitions, the Center will embody the fullness and vitality of Jewish life and creativity in Boston.
The Vilna Shul will take its rightful place alongside Boston's other famous buildings that symbolize the struggle of Americans for religious and political freedom.