Agudath Israel Etz Ahayem - Etz Ahayem

Etz Ahayem

Ralph Nace Cohen, a Sephardi Jew from Rhodes, settled in Montgomery in 1906, sponsored by a Greek Orthodox friend. Other Sephardi Jews followed, first from Rhodes, and then from the rest of Greece and Turkey. By 1908 this small community celebrated held its first High Holiday services in the Orthodox Community Center, space which was rented by Agudath Israel. In 1912, they named themselves Congregation Etz Ahayem ("Tree of Life"), writing a constitution in Ladino. Temple Beth Or gave them a Torah scroll, and in 1916 they formally incorporated. The congregation bought a house at 450 Sayre Street in 1918, but it was not until 1927 that they completed construction of a building there. At the time the congregation comprised 27 families.

During the German occupation of Greece almost all the Jews of Rhodes were sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp; as a result, most members of Etz Ahayem had close family members who were killed in the Holocaust. Before the occupation, however, members of the Kal Grande congregation in Rhodes had buried their Torah scrolls. After the war the scrolls were retrieved and sent to Israel, and a Dr. Nace Cohen was able to procure one of them for Etz Ahayem.

During the 1950s Etz Ahayem added a great deal of English to its prayer services, which had formerly been conducted solely in Ladino and Hebrew. During the Montgomery Bus Boycott, then rabbi Solomon Acrish spoke in favor of the boycott and against segregation, "citing the demand in Torah for social justice". However, after being followed, and told by gentile friends he could no longer come for dinner, and after Etz Ahayem received a bomb threat, he "toned down his support for desegregation."

In 1962, the congregation moved to a new building, but the children of the congregation generally moved away from Montgomery. By the 1990s the congregation dwindled, and had difficulty finding Sephardi rabbis, relying instead on "lay leaders and the occasional rabbinic services from nearby Maxwell Airforce Base." In 2001 Maxwell Air Force Base ended its rabbinic services, and the congregation was down to 22 member families. The board of directors decided to accept an offer from Agudath Israel to enter into merger negotiations.