Austin’s Jewish community adopts 19th century Orthodox synagogue

Like its environs, the Jewish community of Austin, Texas, has a youthful feel. Situated in a city known for live music, the University of Texas (UT) campus, and the founding of Michael Dell’s computer technology giant in his UT dorm room, the 40-acre Dell Jewish Community Campus mirrors the relatively new infrastructure in the rest of Austin.

The Jewish Community Center of Austin opened in 2000, in stark contrast with other Jewish communities in Texas (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio) and elsewhere that have had JCCs for more than a century. But what Jay Rubin refers to as a “21st-century city” just got outfitted with some 19th-century style.

Rubin—CEO of Shalom Austin, which operates the JCC as well as the local Jewish Federation, Jewish Family Service, and Jewish Foundation, in addition to managing the Dell campus—recently gave JNS.org a tour of the campus and its newest addition, B’nai Abraham Synagogue, whose building was divided into three pieces, transported from 90 miles away in Brenham, and pieced back together and renovated in Austin. On the campus, B’nai Abraham now serves as the sanctuary for Congregation Tiferet Israel (Orthodox) and joins two other synagogues on premises, Congregation Agudas Achim (Conservative) and Temple Beth Shalom (Reform). 

“A lot of Jewish communities outside of the big cities, they’re aging, they’re shrinking, institutions are merging. This is a different reality,” Rubin said of Austin.

Why transport a synagogue building from another city rather than building a new one?

B’nai Abraham Synagogue is no ordinary building. From 1894 through the mid-1960s, it served as Brenham’s lone Jewish house of worship. Its 121 years make it the oldest active synagogue building in Texas. Despite regular prayer services not being held there since the 1960s, Mimi and Leon Toubin of Brenham preserved the historic building and welcomed visits by individuals and groups during the last five decades. By relocating to the Dell campus, B’nai Abraham is once again home to daily, Shabbat, and holiday prayer services.