Wilshire Boulevard Temple, founded in 1862 as Congregation B'nai B'rith, is the oldest Jewish congregation in Los Angeles, California. One of the country’s most respected Reform congregations, Wilshire Boulevard Temple's magnificent sanctuary, with its famous dome and Warner Murals, is a City of Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Its immense Byzantine revival dome has been a Los Angeles landmark since 1929. It stands at 100 feet in diameter with its top 135 feet from the street, and was the grand vision of the building architect, A.M. Edelman (son of the congregation's first Rabbi, Abraham Edelman). Its base is flanked by 28 buttresses, or small towers, rising from the ring girder for support.
Funding for the dome's interior decoration was donated by Irving Thalberg, an Academy-Award winning film producer. The prayer inscribed in Hebrew around the Oculus, at the apex of the interior coffered dome, comes from the shm'a prayer, a centerpiece of all Jewish prayer services. The words read: Shm'a Yisroael, Adonoi Eloheinu, Adonaoi Echad; which translates to "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One."
Read more about Wilshire Boulevard Temple: History, Senior Rabbis and Their Terms, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words boulevard and/or temple:
“Arrive in the afternoon, the late light slanting
In diluted gold bars across the boulevard brag
Of proud, seamed faces with mercy and murder hinting
here, there, interrupting, all deep and debonair,
The pink paint on the innocence of fear;
Walk in a gingerly manner up the hall.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“If one doubts whether Grecian valor and patriotism are not a fiction of the poets, he may go to Athens and see still upon the walls of the temple of Minerva the circular marks made by the shields taken from the enemy in the Persian war, which were suspended there. We have not far to seek for living and unquestionable evidence. The very dust takes shape and confirms some story which we had read.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)