On a sweltering Friday afternoon, June 9, 1876, an extraordinary scene played out
AT exactly 4 p.m. on a sweltering Friday afternoon, June 9, 1876, an extraordinary scene played out on the corner of 6th and G Streets in the heart of Washington, D.C.
President Ulysses S. Grant — accompanied by his son Ulysses Jr. and acting vice president Senator Thomas Ferry of Michigan — took his place on one of two small sofas arranged specially for the occasion inside a modest brick synagogue. The building was festooned with evergreens, flowers, and American flags draped over the ark, while carpets lined the entrance and fresh sod covered the lawn outside.
What Grant witnessed was the dedication of Adas Israel — the city’s first Orthodox synagogue — and, according to contemporary reports, the first time in American Jewish history that both a president and vice president had attended a synagogue consecration.
The three-hour ceremony marked the culmination of a 24-year journey that began in the parlor of Herman Lissberger’s Pennsylvania Avenue home. On April 25, 1852, 21 German-Jewish immigrants gathered there to establish what they carefully termed a “Hebrew Congregation,” preserving their discussion in elegant German script — a statement of both Jewish identity and cultural heritage.
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