National Register Listing

Temple Beth Israel

a.k.a. Ruth Denny Theatre

3517 Austin St., Houston, TX

Temple Beth Israel was one of the most important religious buildings to be built in Houston in the 1920s. It is the oldest remaining work of architecture associated with Congregation Beth Israel, the oldest Jewish congregation in Texas. The Temple and its related educational and community buildings are landmarks in the neighborhood where they were built, which is a section in the south end of Houston developed as a suburban civic center during the 1910s and 1920s.

Temple Beth Israel and its attendant facilities, the Abe M. Levy Community House, the Mendelsohn Memorial Religious School, and the Freed Memorial Tower (the last two added in 1949-1950), comprise a rare example of the use of Moderne architecture for religious buildings. In the case of the Temple, the blocky massing, the use of low relief and brick detailing on the exterior walls, and the abstract rendering of classical elements (notably the inset portico on Austin Street) are hallmarks of the Moderne style in American architecture of the 1920s.

The architect of Temple Beth Israel was Joseph Finger (1887-1953), a member of the congregation who was born in Austria. Shortly after immigrating to the United States, he settled in Houston in 1908. In 1913 Finger opened his own office to begin a 40-year career as one of Houston's most successful architects. Among his major works are the Plaza, Auditorium, and Texas State Hotels in Houston; several multistory hotels in Port Arthur, Lake Charles, and Texarkana; and the Keystone and National Cash Register Company buildings and the Levy's and Battlestein's department stores in downtown Houston. Finger also designed a number of fine Houston houses including the Tennison House in Montrose (now the Alliance Francaise), the West House at Clear Lake (now the Lunar Science Institute), the Edel House in Braeswood, the West and Platt houses in River Oaks, and houses for Joe Weingarten, Abe Weingarten, and Abe Battlestein in Riverside Terrace.

As early as 1914, Finger had experimented with a proto-Moderne style of architecture at the now-demolished Concordia Club. Temple Beth Israel was his second major essay in this style. From the late 1920s, with such buildings as the Houston Turn-Verein Clubhouse (National Register, 1978), the Baker Brothers showroom, Jefferson Davis Hospital, the Clarke and Courts printing plant, the Montgomery County Courthouse, the Houston City Hall, Houston Municipal Airport, and the Harris County Courthouse (his last work), Finger became one of the Houston architects especially identified with the Moderne trend.

Finger's combination of what he described as Greek and Egyptian motifs in the architectural decoration of Beth Israel, reflected a nineteenth-century tradition of Jewish religious architecture. From the 1850s, a combination of exotic detail, variously labeled Levantine or Saracenic, and culled from the Islamic architecture of the Middle East and Spain, was employed for Jewish synagogues and temples. The earliest American example was the Plum Street Temple in Cincinnati of 1866-67. During the 1890s a certain architectural reaction to this High Victorian trend became evident as architects turned to classical forms. In part, this represented a general change in taste, but it also underlined the growing distinction within American Judaism between the Orthodox and reform parties. For instance, when Congregation Beth Israel built its second house of worship in 1908, it constructed a classically detailed building. However, the breakaway orthodox congregation of Adath Yeshurin erected its synagogue at the same time in the "Saracenic" style.

In her architectural history of the American Synagogue, Rachel Wischnitzer noted the development of a distinct type for American temples built in the 1920s in which a central, squarish auditorium without galleries, centered beneath a shallow vaulted ceiling, was prefaced by a symmetrically composed entrance vestibule articulated as a separate massing element. Ancillary spaces--offices, classrooms, and community rooms--were accommodated in a rear or side wing. Temple Beth Israel conforms to this type and, by Wischnitzer's chronology, qualifies as an early example.

The rabbi of congregation Beth Israel at this time was the English-born Henry Barnston who, during the course of his 49-year tenure at Beth Israel, became one of Houston's most respected community leaders. The donors of the Abe M. Levy Community House, Harriet and Haskell Levy, were also outstanding community figures. Miss Levy contributed significantly to the cultural life of early 20th-century Houston. Haskell Levy, with his brother Abe, founded Levy Brothers, one of Houston's first department stores. Another notable Houston merchant, Simon Sakowitz, co-founder of the specialty store of Sakowitz Brothers, was the chairman of the building committee. Finger had also designed the Sakowitz House in Montrose.

Congregation Beth Israel is the oldest Jewish congregation in Texas. It was organized in 1854 and received its charter in 1859. The first permanent synagogue was built in 1874 on Crawford Street, in the Second Ward of Houston. The congregation, which was reformed in 1899, relocated some blocks to the south of this site in 1908. By 1921, the continuing growth of the congregation made new facilities imperative. Property for a new temple was purchased at Austin Street and Holman Avenue in a then-fashionable suburban neighborhood in the South End.

Adjacent to the site at Austin and Holman, the monumental and classical South End Junior High School was built between 1912 and 1914, at Holman Avenue and Caroline Street. Around it were located large, columned houses, of which the Richardson House and the Sewall and Horton houses in the 3200 block are the most important examples. In 1917, the Trinity Episcopal Church (National Register, 1983) was begun at Holman and Main Boulevard. The construction of Temple Beth Israel and the First Congregational Church of 1926-27 at Holman Avenue and Caroline Street, which was done in Italian Romanesque style, completed this grouping of imposing public and private buildings. Finger was to contribute further to this group when he designed the skewed wings flanking the central section of South End Junior High School, in 1936, notable for the Moderne sculptural detail of the towers.

Congregation Beth Israel occupied the present temple until 1969 when it moved to a new site in Southwest Houston. The property was sold to the Houston Independent School District which, during the 1970s, used the Temple as the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. In 1977 the Texas Society of Architects presented an Award of Merit to the architects Harvin Moore-Barry Moore for their scheme of adaptively reusing the auditorium as a theater. Presently, Temple Beth Israel is scheduled to be used as an educational facility by Houston Community College.

Local significance of the building:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1984.