Sing Hallelujah! The year 2025 marks the 150th (or sesquicentennial) year since BJ acquired its first organ. The organ’s installation in the congregation was one of three contentious issues for the community — the others being: to allow women in the choir, and to permit that men and women could sit together in the pews. These changes demonstrated the growing influence of the Reform movement in America. While discussions are likely to have begun in the 1860s, it was not until May 16, 1875, that an organ was actually approved and then installed at the 34th Street synagogue. By the time of installation, many, if not most, congregants were German immigrants who would have been familiar with the use of organs. In Germany, instruments had already been incorporated into many synagogues years earlier.

With the introduction of organs into Reform synagogues in the early nineteenth century, a new branch of Jewish music began. The admission of organs into the synagogue service, which traditional Jews regarded as a ‘Christianisation’ of the service, was the subject of vehement quarrels and debates surrounding the halachic question of whether one may play the organ on Sabbath and Holidays, and if so, whether a Jewish musician may perform. The debate extended to communities and to rabbinical conferences, and was the subject of various polemics. After the synod in Leipzig 1869, [attended mostly by Reform rabbis and lay leaders], most synagogues in German-speaking lands introduced organs, a development that would extend to other countries and continents as well, reaching its peak by the turn of the century. ¹

Following the installation of the 1875 organ, organ music became a regular feature of the congregation’s service. When the new Madison Ave synagogue was built in the 1880s, a new organ was installed:

…[Organmakers G.J. &S ] have just completed one of their finest organs in the city for the new Jewish Temple, on Madison Avenue, corner of 65th Street; it has three manuals and 40 stops, some of which are quite new in the country, among which are the Como Anglais, 16ft tone, saxophone, vox humana, a chime of 32 bells and mechanical appliances giving the organist instantaneous control over over its varied effects.²

As was the case in some German synagogues, the organ was installed above the ark. When the 88th Street synagogue was built in 1918, the Madison Avenue synagogue’s organ was brought over and installed in a similar location. In 1925, as part of the celebration of B’nai Jeshurun’s centennial year, a new organ was purchased and replaced the old one:

In 1925, the Austin Organ company of Hartford, Conn., installed a three manual organ in the sanctuary of the synagogue. The pipes and mechanism of the organ were located behind an elaborately stenciled pipe facade in the musicians’ gallery above the Bima… Over the years the organ was damaged and pipes were stolen, rendering it unusable. An electronic instrument was installed.³

Sources

1. Music and the Holocaust

2. The Musical Courier, vol X, no.17, August 29, 1885

3. The New York City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists

Israel Goldstein, A Century of Judaism in New York: B’nai Jeshurun 1825–1925