Rosenberg, Bernard D. Rabbi

Biography / Administrative History

By 1849 there were over two hundred Jews in the Gold Rush transportation hub city of Stockton. Two years later they formed a benevolent society, Ryhim Ahvooim [Brotherly Love] (1851), and in 1855 formally organized a congregation. This group was nominally orthodox, though some traditional practices were abandoned to conform to life in a growing western town. During its first twenty-one years the congregation was generally headed by cantors with rabbis present only on high holy days or for short periods. From 1890 there was a strong movement within the congregation to adopt Reformed Judaism and eventually the cantor was removed, women were allowed to join the congregation and a rabbi was found who could preach in English (1896).