Started by Hungarian immigrants more than 150 years ago.

In 1866 sixteen Hungarian Jewish immigrants began meeting for prayer in the Cleveland, Ohio home of Herman Sampliner. By the next year the group had increased to 25 members and in its 3rd year more than 400 worshippers attended High Holiday services.

Continuously growing, the group rented Halle’s Hall in 1872 and moved to the old German Theater in 1878. In 1887 the group purchased the Anshe Hesed Congregation’s former building and moved in. B’nai Jeshurun, known as The Hungarian Congregation, was incorporated with the State of Ohio in 1892. They built and dedicated a new building at East 55th and Scovill in 1906. That same year the congregation shifted from Orthodox to Conservative.

With over 800 members in 1923, the congregation sold the 55th Street synagogue and built anew in Cleveland Heights. This new synagogue, known as The Temple of the Heights, was dedicated in 1926. Thirty years later a new wing was added for classrooms, offices and a chapel.

Alice Deitz, the first woman to serve as a member of the Board of Trustees, was elected in 1969.

Continuing the congregation’s pattern of growth and modernization, ground was broken in Pepper Pike in May of 1978. The new synagogue, which remains its current home, was dedicated in May of 1980.