Area less than 1 acre NRHP Reference # 99001268 Added to NRHP 21 October 1999 | Built 1901, 1922 Architectural style Prairie School | |
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Location 1320 Nebraska St.
Sioux City, Iowa Similar St Thomas Episcopal Church, Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox, Badgerow Building, Warrior Hotel, Sioux City Municipal Auditorium | ||
Mount Sinai Temple was a Reform synagogue located in Sioux City, Iowa, United States. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.
HistoryEdit
There were Jews living in Sioux City as early as the 1860s, but a synagogue was not built in the city until 1884. Adas Jeshurun was an Orthodox congregation. The Jewish community in Sioux City grew from 200 in 1890 to nearly 2,500 by World War I. Sioux City was home to the second largest Jewish community in the state of Iowa at the time. Mount Sinai Temple was established in 1901. The synagogue, which opened the same year, was expanded in 1922. The building was designed in the Prairie School style. Between World Wars I and II the Jewish Community Center in Sioux City hosted 60 to 70 clubs, classes and organizations that ranged from socialist workers to Zionists. A one-mile section of West Seventh Street was home to 22 Jewish owned businesses in 1944.
After World War II the Jewish community in Sioux City began to decline. By the mid 1980s the population was down to 700 people, and by 2001 it was down to 300. The Jewish congregations in Sioux City combined their religious schools in 1990. Four years later the congregations themselves merged at Beth Shalom, the Conservative synagogue.