Beth Hamedrash Hagadol - Post-Joseph Era

Post-Joseph Era

Joseph was succeeded by Rabbi Shalom Elchanan Jaffe, a founder of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis and a strong supporter of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. Jaffe, who was born near Vilna, had, like Joseph, studied at the Volozhin yeshiva, and had received his rabbinic ordination from Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin and Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor. The author of several books of religious commentary, Jaffe was an influential rabbi on the Lower East Side, in part because of his authority over kosher supervision of New York's butcher stores and slaughterhouses. He was also a strong anti-Zionist and "rejoiced when Herzl died".

Harry Fischel was the congregation's Vice President until 1902; there he first met and eventually attended the Bar Mitzvah of his future son-in-law, Herbert S. Goldstein. Goldstein, who was ordained by Jaffe at the JTSA, founded the Institutional Synagogue in Harlem. He is the only person to have been president of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the Rabbinical Council of America (first presidium), and the Synagogue Council of America. It was in response to an April 1929 telegram from Goldstein, asking if Albert Einstein believed in God, that Einstein stated, "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and actions of human beings."

Beth Hamedrash Hagodol had 175 member families by 1908, and the synagogue's annual revenues were $10,000 (today $250,000). In 1909, the synagogue was the site of a mass meeting to protest the 20th Central Conference of American Rabbis, described as "the malicious misrepresentation of Judaism by the so-called reformed rabbis in conference in this city", and in 1913 the synagogue was the site of a "historic mass meeting" to raise funds for the first Young Israel synagogue, at which Jacob Schiff was the guest speaker. Membership had fallen to 110 families by 1919.

Dr. Benjamin Fleischer, a noted orator, was elected rabbi of Beth Hamedrash Hagadol in September 1924. While serving as Beth Hamedrash Hagadol's rabbi he published his 1938 philosophical work Revaluation. Miscellaneous essays, lectures and discourses on Jewish religious philosophy, ethics and history and his 1941 military history From Dan To Megiddo. In May 1939, he and two other rabbis (and a fourth rabbi as secretary) formed the first permanent beth din (court of Jewish law) in the U.S.

In the early-to-mid-20th century the congregation's financial footing was still not sound; though the Norfolk Street building had been purchased in 1885 for $45,000 (and $10,000 in alterations and repairs), in 1921 it still owed $40,000 (today $520,000) on the mortgage. Additional costs were incurred by work done on the building; two years earlier, architect George Dress had rearranged the toilet facilities, in 1934 architect Philip Bardes designed a small brick extension at the building's south-east corner, and in the 1930s or 1940s the walls and four of the five spandrels in the sanctuary interior were painted with colorful "Eastern European-inspired" pictures and murals of Jerusalem and "Holy Land landscapes and Biblical scenes". At the end of December 1946, then-president Abraham Greenwald stated that unless $35,000 (today $420,000) were immediately raised for the repair of the building, it would have to be demolished.

Ephraim Oshry, noted Torah scholar and religious leader in the Kovno Ghetto, and one of the few European Jewish legal decisors to survive The Holocaust, became the synagogue's rabbi in 1952, a post he retained for over 50 years. During the Holocaust the Nazis had made him the custodian of a warehouse that stored Jewish books intended for an exhibit of "artifacts of the extinct Jewish race". He used the books to help him write responsa, answering questions asked of him regarding how Jews could live their lives in accordance with Jewish law under the extreme conditions imposed by the Nazis. He also ran "secret nightly worship services", and helped Jews bake matzos for Passover, under threat of death if discovered. After the war he founded a yeshiva for Jewish orphans in Italy, and then another religious school in Montreal, before moving to New York to take up the position of rabbi at Beth Hamedrash Hagadol. There, his Sunday afternoon lectures were so popular that the entire 1,200-seat sanctuary was filled, and the overflow had to sit on the stairs. While rabbi of Beth Hamedrash Hagadol, he founded another yeshiva in Monsey, New York for gifted high school aged boys.

The congregation's building was again threatened with demolition in 1967, but Oshry, possibly the first Lower East Side rabbi to recognize the value of landmark designation, was successful in having it designated a New York city landmark, thus saving it. At that time the congregation claimed 1,400 members.

In 1974, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission applied to have the building added to the National Register of Historic Places, and considered significant at the state level; on the application the building's condition was described as "excellent". The case was reviewed on June 19, 1974, and the site was deemed ineligible. The building was repainted and repaired in 1977, but in subsequent years deteriorated and suffered damage.