Shearith Israel was the only Jewish Congregation in New York City from 1654 until 1825. As the only synagogue, it was Shearith Israel to which Jewish residents of New York turned for education, worship, charity, and community. At the time of its founding, the Congregation wasn’t even legally allowed to practice their religion publicly, but this didn’t stop them from renting space on Beaver Street at the southern tip of Manhattan. However, it did take until 1730 for the community to build a synagogue of its own, and since that time it has resided in four locations.

The First Mill Street Synagogue, which they moved into in 1730 and expanded in 1818 (on today’s South William Street) was consecrated in 1730. It was the very first structure in North America designed and built as a synagogue. Next, they moved to 60 Crosby Street, in today’s SoHo. That synagogue was completed in 1834. From there they moved to 5 West 19th Street, just west of Fifth Avenue, in today’s Flatiron District. That synagogue was completed in 1860.

Finally, they moved to the synagogue’s current landmarked location at 2 West 70th Street on the Upper West Side, which was built in 1897. Today’s grand Seventieth Street Synagogue of the Congregation Shearith Israel was designed by Arnold Brunner with interior and windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany.

According to the synagogue, their current location had previously housed a duck farm. To create the building, the Congregation selected Brunner, an American Jewish architect with a distinguished career. Brunner designed this beautiful neo-classical style building, called by the Congregation “a reflection and reaffirmation of its commitment to tradition.” Louis Comfort Tiffany designed the interior, its color scheme, and most notably the gorgeous stained glass windows.

Another legacy of Shearith Israel's journey across the city is the congregation's graveyards. Soon after the 23 Spanish and Portuguese Jews of Sherith Israel arrived in New Amsterdam, they began to make arrangements for the creation of a cemetery — the very first Jewish burial ground in North America. In 1656 the New Amsterdam authorities granted the Shearith Israel Congregation “a little hook of land situated outside of this city for a burial place.”

Its exact location is unknown, and it has long since been destroyed. The Congregation’s second cemetery, which is today known as the “First Cemetery” because it is the oldest surviving one, was purchased in 1683. That “First Cemetery” was located at 55-57 St. James Place near Chatham Square in Lower Manhattan, and many of the bodies from the actual first cemetery were moved there.

When the “First” cemetery began to fill to capacity, a “Second” cemetery needed to be established, and they purchased a much larger plot of land in then-rural Greenwich Village. The West Eleventh Street cemetery, or “Second Cemetery” of Congregation Shearith Israel, was consecrated on February 27, 1805. Some of the bodies from the First cemetery were moved there, including some which date to the earliest Jewish settlers of New York. At first, this was only a satellite cemetery. But in 1823, city public health ordinances banned burial in the congregation’s first cemetery at Chatham Square, making the West 11th Street Cemetery the congregation’s only burial ground. Among those buried here are the Revolutionary War veteran Ephraim Hart, and the noted painter Joshua A. Canter.