From the New Brunswick Daily Times, November 22, 1935 A Unique Social Event!

PLANS COMPLETED FOR NOVEL CRUISE OF ‘ANSHE EMETH’

The early years, 1900-1925

In October, 1900, acting on a suggestion made by newly-arrived Rabbi Morris Waldman, it was decided to organize an Anshe Emeth “Ladies’ Auxiliary.” The meeting took place “in the parlor” of Mrs. Theodore Cohn, and the first president was Mrs. Max (Henrietta) Lederer, recently married to the son of one of the Temple’s founders.

In February 1965, Rabbi Jack Spiro suggested that Anshe Emeth consider instituting a ceremony of Bat Mitzvah, writing that “The ceremony is a valuable one emotionally, religiously, and socially for the new adolescent; it is just as valuable for the girl as it is for the boy.”  

The number “40” has special biblical significance:  Noah’s flood lasted 40 days; the Jews wandered in the desert for 40 years.  And it took Congregation Anshe Emeth (as it was then known) 40 years to acquire the services of a full-time rabbi.  

From the New Brunswick Daily Times, September 27, 1897
 
“Members of the Congregation Anshe Emeth, the only fully organized Hebrew congregation in the city, had two reasons for being truly happy yesterday, for they not only celebrated Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, in their new synagogue, but they also held services dedicating their new place of worship.

One month after receiving its charter in 1859, the congregation’s leaders wrote letters to several European synagogues appealing for a Torah.  Within two months they received this response from the Alte-Nue Synagogue in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

In the 1850’s the New Brunswick Jewish population was still very small (less than 100 people).  Over the preceding decade most of them had come from Germany, the birthplace, 50 years earlier, of Reform Judaism.

150 years ago, in 1859, a small group of Jews from Germany and Bohemia established the Congregation Anshe Emeth to keep their heritage alive in a world exploding with knowledge, innovation and political crises.