The Rich History
Eastern European Jewish immigrants began arriving to the city of Boston in large numbers in the 1880s. Poor and looking to rebuild their old communities, many Jews settled in crowded tenement neighborhoods like the North and West Ends of Boston. There they often formed a landsmanschaft – an organization of re-settled people originally from the same area in Europe.
In 1893, a group of Jewish immigrants from Vilna Guberniya – the county outside of the city of Vilnius, Lithuania - formed a landsmanschaft in Boston’s West End. They prayed together, gathering a minyan – ten men needed to hold a complete Jewish prayer service – in the homes of their members. As their membership increased and they formed an Orthodox Jewish congregation, which they called Anshei Vilner – the people of Vilnius – they required a permanent synagogue.
As more immigrants moved to Beacon Hill and tenements were built, the African American community that had previously lived on the North Slope of Beacon Hill began to move away. In 1906, the 12th Baptist Church (est. 1848) sold its building at 45 Phillips Street to Anshei Vilner. The church, which seated 900 people, was converted into a synagogue. After 10 years at 45 Phillips Street, the city of Boston purchased the former church from Anshei Vilner for $20,000, and demolished the building to make way for an expansion to the Wendell Phillips School.
On December 11, 1919, Anshei Vilner laid the cornerstone for its new building at 18 Phillips Street. The congregation used the only Jewish architect in the city, Max Kalman, and employed young men in the community to help with the construction. In the style of Eastern European Jews, they painted the walls and ceiling of their new synagogue with decorative murals, although these painting were eventually covered over with beige paint.
For sixty-five years, the congregation prayed at 18 Phillips Street. In 1985, after most of the Jewish community had long since left Beacon Hill, and the West End had been destroyed in a 1950s urban renewal project, the last remaining member of Anshei Vilner, Mendel Miller, held a service in the synagogue for the last time.
