Congregation Mickve Israel - History - Congregation Formed

Congregation Formed

The congregation was established in July 1735 as Kahal Kadosh Mickva Israel (the Holy Congregation, the Hope of Israel); they soon rented a building for use as a synagogue. The congregation was founded by many from a group of 42 Jews who had sailed from London aboard the William and Sarah and had arrived in Savannah on July 11, 1733, months after the colony's founding by James Oglethorpe. All but eight of the group were Sephardic Jews, from Spain and Portugal, who had fled to England a decade earlier to escape the Spanish Inquisition. In London, many had been members of the Bevis Marks Synagogue. Wealthy members of London's Jewish community, then numbering 6,000, had provided financial assistance to subsidize the initial group and a second ship, which carried additional Jewish colonists to Savannah. The founders of the congregation brought with them a Sefer Torah, which is still used on special occasions at the synagogue.

On July 5, 1742, during the The War of Jenkins' Ear between Spain and the Kingdom of Great Britain, Spanish troops landed on St. Simons Island as part of their Invasion of Georgia. Most of the Sephardi Jews abandoned Savannah, fearing that if captured they would be treated as apostates and burnt at the stake. The Minis and Sheftall families, Ashkenazi Jews, were the only ones to stay. They gave up the rented synagogue building and held services informally at the home of Benjamin Sheftall.

By 1774, enough Jews had returned to Savannah to justify re-establishing the congregation on a formal basis. At a meeting held the day before Yom Kippur, the assembled group agreed to conduct services in a room that Mordecai Sheftall (Benjamin's son) had prepared for such use.

During the American Revolutionary War, the congregation did not hold formal prayer or religious services. On July 7, 1786, "K. K. Mickvah Israel" was reorganized and they rented a space for use as a synagogue, attracting as many as 70 worshipers. Governor of Georgia Edward Telfair authorized a charter for the "Parnas and Adjuntas of Mickve Israel at Savannah" on November 20, 1790, under which the congregation still operates. By 1793, the congregation had difficulty paying rent and gave up its leased space. While services were held in the homes of members, the congregation maintained its formal structure and elected officers.

In 1997, a recipe for charoset, a paste made of fruits and nuts served as part of the ceremonial Passover Seder, was found from the congregation, which dated to 1794. The recipe described charoset as a "compound formed of almonds, apples, & C. Worked up to the consistence of lime."

The Congregation was the first Jewish community to receive a letter from the President of the United States. In response to a letter sent by Levi Sheftall, the congregation's president, congratulating George Washington on his election as the first President, Washington replied, "To the Hebrew Congregation of the City of Savannah, Georgia":

"... May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivering the Hebrews from their Egyptian Oppressors planted them in the promised land - whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation - still continue to water them with the dews of heaven and to make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah."