Breed Street Shul, Byzantine Revival synagogue in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, US
Breed Street Shul is a former Orthodox synagogue in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, built in 1923 from unreinforced masonry with veneer brick and cast stone. Its tan brick facade rises to a rounded gable and features a large round-headed arch framing a window with a central Star of David. A band beneath reads "CONGREGATION TALMUD TORAH", and two round-headed doorways with dark grilles sit above a short flight of steps.
Congregation Talmud Torah began in 1904 in rented rooms at 114 Rose Street, downtown, and merged with a Breed Street group after losing its minyan. In 1915 the congregation bought a lot and built a wooden synagogue; the brick building by Edelman and Barnett opened in 1923. Services moved to the old wooden structure in the mid-1980s and ceased in 1996.
The facade carries the inscription "CONGREGATION TALMUD TORAH", the name the congregation took from its 1904 Hebrew school on Rose Street. In 1948 the shul hosted a ceremony where the new flag of Israel was raised in Los Angeles for the first time. Rabbi Osher Zilberstein led the congregation from 1935 until his death in 1973.
Access may be limited during ongoing restoration work, so it is best to check what areas are open before visiting. The building is located in a residential neighborhood with good public transit access and walking paths nearby.
In 1948 the synagogue hosted a ceremony where the new flag of Israel was flown for the first time in Los Angeles. The building had already served as a community anchor: the Breed Street block also held the Los Angeles Jewish Academy and the Mount Sinai Clinic, a forerunner of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
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