Congregation Beth Israel (Meridian, Mississippi)

Congregation Beth Israel in Meridian, Mississippi, is a Reform Jewish congregation founded in 1868 and a member of the Union for Reform Judaism. The congregation's first permanent house of worship was a Middle Eastern-style building constructed in 1879. The congregation moved to another building built in the Greek Revival style in 1906, and in 1964 moved to a more modern building, out of which they still operate.The congregation was initially made up of only ten families but grew to include 50 members by 1878. By the time their second building was built in 1906, the congregation included 82 members, and Meridian as a whole had grown to include 525 Jewish residents by 1927. By the 2000s there were fewer than forty, mostly elderly Jews remaining in the city, however, and the congregation no longer has a full-time rabbi. Former rabbis include Judah Wechsler, after whom the Wechsler school was named, and William Ackerman, whose wife Paula Ackerman became the first woman to perform rabbinical duties in the country after her husband's unexpected death.In 1968, the education building of the new complex was bombed by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Pieces of glass were salvaged from the destruction and are now incorporated into the front windows of the current synagogue building. The congregation owns and maintains a historic cemetery at 19th Street and 15th Avenue which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.