Ten scalloped walls of Temple Beth Zion, the Reform synagogue at 805 Delaware Avenue, rise in front of you here in Buffalo. Founded in 1850 and originally an Orthodox congregation, it reorganized as a Reform congregation in 1863 and is now the largest Jewish congregation in Western New York and one of the oldest and largest Reform congregations in the nation. The building you see is the Max Abramovitz-designed scalloped oval Modernist synagogue: ten scallop walls, each a symbol of the Ten Commandments, rise from the entrance 45 feet and flare outward at fifteen degrees, all firmly anchored to a pedestal fifty feet below ground level.
Two 30-foot-high Commandment Tablets loom as part of the design, and Ben Shahn created the sanctuary’s stained windows, the Commandment Tablets, and the menorah. Inside the building is a Casavant Frères 48-rank, 4,000-pipe organ. The synagogue was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018 and sits within the Delaware Avenue Historic District.
Beside it, the Benjamin and Dr. Edgar R. Cofeld Judaic Museum offers a rotating collection of Judaica. Picture Ben Shahn's stained windows and the two 30-foot Commandment Tablets inside the ten scalloped walls of this sanctuary.