The Eutaw Place Temple

An icon on Eutaw Place, the former Temple Oheb Shalom is a reminder of the vibrant Jewish community that thrived in the late nineteenth century in... more

by Walter Neal

Title

The Eutaw Place Temple

Artist

Walter Neal

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

An icon on Eutaw Place, the former Temple Oheb Shalom is a reminder of the vibrant Jewish community that thrived in the late nineteenth century in what were then Baltimore’s expanding northwest suburbs. Built in 1892, architect Joseph Evans Sperry modeled the Eutaw Place Temple after the Great Synagogue of Florence, Italy. Since 1960, the building is home to the Prince Hall Grand Lodge that has boasted such notable members as Thurgood Marshall and Eubie Blake.

A small group of twenty-one young German Jews established the Oheb Shalom congregation in 1853 to provide an alternative to the Orthodox Baltimore Hebrew Congregation (1830) and the Reform Har Sinai (1846). The congregation moved to Eutaw Place in 1892 and remained through their 1960 when they moved into a midcentury modern synagogue on Park Heights Avenue in Pikesville and completed the move to in 1960. Temple Oheb Shalom has played a significant role in American Jewish life through the history of the rabbis and cantors who have led the congregation, most notably Rabbi Benjamin Szold who led Oheb Shalom through 1892 and whose daughter, Henrietta Szold, was the founder of Hadassah.

In 1960, Temple Oheb Shalom left Eutaw Place for Pikesville and the Prince Hall Grand Lodge, under the leadership of Samuel T. Daniels, purchased the building. Among the members of The Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Maryland are Baltimore-born Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and James Hubert “Eubie” Blake, one of the most significant figures in early-20th-century African American music. In 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. visited the lodge to campaign on behalf of President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Prince Hall Masons Masonic Temple of Baltimore is a building designed in the Byzantine Revival (also referred to as Neo-Byzantine), an architectural revival movement, most frequently seen in religious, institutional and public buildings. It emerged in 1840s in Western Europe and peaked in the last quarter of 19th century in the Russian Empire; an isolated Neo-Byzantine school was active in Yugoslavia between World War I and World War II. Neo-Byzantine architecture incorporates elements of the Byzantine style associated with Eastern and Orthodox Christian architecture dating from the 5th through 11th centuries, notably that of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) and the Exarchate of Ravenna.

In the United States and elsewhere, the Neo-Byzantine style is often seen in vernacular amalgamations with other Medieval revivalist styles such as Romanesque and Gothic, or even with the Mission Revival or Spanish Colonial Revival styles.

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September 15th, 2014

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