Rodef Sholom 

On the evening of 12 May 1867, fifteen Jewish immigrant storekeepers met at the home of Abraham Walbrun and formally organized a constitution and by-laws for the first Jewish congregation in the city of Youngstown. The fifteen charter members divided themselves into “three classes” and collected four hundred and ninety-five dollars as freewill offerings. At a second meeting a week later, the charter members collected another ninety-five dollars, elected officers, and named their assembly Congregation Rodef Sholom (Pursuers of Peace). David Theobald served as the first president of the congregation, being also largely responsible for the purchase of the property used to build their first temple. The members initially assembled at congregants’ residences until they secured funds to rent a room atop Abraham Walbrun’s Woolen Factory Store in the Porter Block of West Federal Street for both worship and educational instruction.    

Although organized during the German Reform Movement, “the annals of the Temple indicate that, in comparison with the late twentieth century Judaic standards, the congregation at its inception was actually much more orthodox than reform.” During the first two years, the small congregation purchased a Sefer Torah from Germany for sixty dollars in gold and appointed their first Rabbi - Lippman Liebman, a native of Karlsruhe, Baden, Germany. Rodef Sholom’s decision to identify itself as an American reform temple in the late 1870s, a mere decade after its inception as an Orthodox congregation, reflected an appreciation and acceptance of American social mores. 

The drastic influx of eastern and southern European immigrants from 1880 to 1924 altered significantly the dynamics of communities throughout America – including Youngstown. A growing membership in Congregation Rodef Sholom led to the 4 June 1886 dedication of a formal temple on the corner of Fifth and Lincoln Avenues, a mere four city blocks northwest of West Federal Street. Tsarist Russia’s punitive military draft decrees, state-sponsored pogroms throughout the Pale of Settlement, and severe socio-economic upheavals throughout all of Eastern Europe forced Hungarian, Polish, Lithuanian, Romanian, and Russian Jews to emigrate en-masse to the industrialized city of Youngstown. Despite their common Orthodox religious affiliation, each of the new eastern European Jewish ethnic groups transported its own specific religious and cultural traditions to distinct areas of the city. [1]   

Old Rodef Sholom Temple.  Illustration from the Youngstown Jewish Times, 1 October 1937.  Acc. No. JA91-660P-24. MVHS Collections  

Old Rodef Sholom Temple.  Illustration from the Vindicator, 7 May 1967.  Acc. No. JA91-660P-82.  MVHS Collections

New Rodef Sholom Temple.  Illustration from the Vindicator, 7 May 1967. Acc. No. JA91-660P-82, MVHS Collections

Rabbi Lippman Liebman with a granddaughter. Acc. No. 92.43.1c MVHS Collections

Dr. I. E. Philo.  Illustration from the 1915 Dedication Program for Rodef Sholom, MVHS Collections.

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