Temple Beth Elohim, Romanesque Revival synagogue in Georgetown, South Carolina

Temple Beth Elohim is a two-story brick building with Romanesque Revival details, a central facade, and balanced side wings located on Screven Street. The structure serves as both a place of worship and a gathering space for the local Jewish community.

Abraham Cohen and his brother Solomon Cohen Sr., Sephardic Jews from London via Charleston, settled in the Georgetown district in the early 1760s and worshipped in homes and at the Winyah Indigo Society. The congregation's constitution was signed on October 30, 1904, and the synagogue building opened in 1906, more than a century after Cohen's 1800 burial in the cemetery he helped found in 1772.

The synagogue keeps Reform Jewish traditions alive through regular services and community gatherings that shape local Jewish life today. Visitors experience a space where members meet and continue their heritage together.

Keep in mind that services are led by community members today, so the building may not always be open to casual visitors. Recent restoration work has maintained the structure, making it accessible and safe to visit when the doors are open.

Beth Elohim Cemetery, founded in 1772 by Abraham Cohen and others, lies several blocks from the synagogue, directly across from the old Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church built after Emancipation. Cohen, his sister Esther Cohen Myers and her husband Mordecai Myers are buried there; Cohen was laid to rest 28 years after helping establish the graveyard.