Eldridge Street Synagogue was the first great synagogue built by Eastern European Jewish immigrants in America. When the Eldridge Street Synagogue was completed in 1887, its congregation, Kahal Adath Jeshurun, was the largest Eastern European Jewish congregation in the country, and its Moorish Revival facade with its great rose window was a statement of permanence and aspiration by a community that had arrived with almost nothing. For decades it was a vibrant center of Lower East Side Jewish life, but as the congregation declined through the twentieth century, the sanctuary fell into disrepair.
A restoration project, begun in 1986, spent twenty-two years and millions of dollars returning it to its original grandeur. The spectacular sanctuary inside, with its thirty-foot bimah, its gilded women's gallery, and its handmade woodwork, was fully restored in 2008. The east wall's stained-glass rose window was installed in 2010, designed by artist Kiki Smith to replace the original that was lost.
The museum here is one of the finest in the city for understanding the immigrant Jewish experience.