Shearith Israel Consecrates the Mill Street Synagogue

On this day, Congregation Shearith Israel consecrated its first purpose-built synagogue on Mill Street, now South William Street in Lower Manhattan. The congregation dates the consecration to the seventh day of Passover, 8 April 1730. The lot had been purchased two years earlier. Congregation records in English and Portuguese begin in 1728. The building was later enlarged and reconsecrated in 1818.

British New York still used the Julian calendar. The 1654 arrival of Sephardi refugees from Recife in New Amsterdam is a separate event. This entry is the 1730 building, not the congregation’s founding. Shearith Israel remained New York’s only synagogue until 1825. Worship followed Spanish and Portuguese rite; the membership included Ashkenazim as well as Sephardim.