CultureNOW - Vilna Shul: David Kalman

Vilna Shul
Places of Worship

Architect
David Kalman

Dates

Constructed, 1919

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Description

ABOUT THE BUILDING
Originally built for an Orthodox congregation by immigrants mostly from Vilna, Lithuania. It is Boston's last remaining immigrant era synagogue.

ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
They're lowering the skylight onto the roof of the Vilna Shul in the new photo. Vilna is in Lithuania, and shul means "synagogue" in Yiddish. Lithuanian immigrants - in many cases, they had fled to the United States from pogroms - built the shul in 1920. Today, it's the only synagogue building in Boston to survive from the great era of immigration. Members of the Jewish community and friends are restoring it as a center for the preservation of Jewish heritage. Many of them stand before it in the new photo.

In 1900, there were 53 Jewish houses of worship listed in the Boston city directory. In 1985, the last of these, Vilna Shul, at 45 Phillips Street on Beacon Hill, was down to a single member, who finally petitioned to dissolve the congregation. There's much history in this Orthodox synagogue. Women weren't allowed to enter by the handsome double-arched doors. They had their own door in the dark alley on the right. The big
six-pointed-star window was a public statement: Jews didn't need to hide their identity in the United States. Inside stands a two story Ark of the Covenant that predates the shul. It was carved from walnut by Jewish craftsmen who learned their skills carving
ponies for carousels in eastern Europe.

The older photo was taken a half-block farther along Phillips, at the corner of Anderson Street, but it accurately represents the largely poor, largely Jewish neighborhood in which Vilna Shul first flourished. The north slope of Beacon Hill then was a world of wooden houses like these, with many small shops - dressmakers, cobblers, grocers, fishmongers - above which, often, lived their owners. It was a very different world from the fine brick town houses of Louisburg Square and the streets of the south slope near Boston Common. The figure with the cart at right is perhaps a tinker, going from house to house mending pots and pans. When will the restoration of Vilna Shul be complete? ''When we get the money," say its sponsors. Best guess: maybe 1999.

-Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - Vilna Shul", Boston Globe, 21 July 1996

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Location

18 Phillips Street
Boston, MA
United States

Nearby Items

Cambridge Street		659 feet
African Meeting House		843 feet
Museum of African American History		845 feet
Nichols House Museum		0.2 miles
57 Mt. Vernon Street		0.2 miles
Louisburg Square		0.2 miles
Charles Street At Beacon Hill		0.3 miles