Originally named Nidche Yisroel (
transliterated from
Hebrew as "Scattered of Israel"), the synagogue was founded in 1830, and for the first fifteen years of its existence, services were held in a small room above a local
grocery. It was originally an Orthodox synagogue, but became Reform officially in 1871. The pressure from the Congregation for modernization was such that its Orthodox first rabbi,
Abraham Rice, resigned his position in 1849 over this question. In 1845, the congregation moved to Lloyd Street under the new name, Baltimore Hebrew Congregation. The new synagogue was dedicated by the Rev. S. M. Isaacs of New York and the Rev.
Isaac Leeser of
Philadelphia, together with the ministers of the congregation, Abraham Rice and A. Ansell (Anshel). As the city of Baltimore and its Jewish population continued to grow, so too did the number of congregants, and also the size of its endowment. In 1891 the congregation moved to Madison Avenue, where it built the
Baltimore Hebrew Congregation Synagogue,
Adolf Guttmacher was rabbi from 1891 to 1915. As the Jewish population of Baltimore moved northwest, the congregation relocated to the Park Heights Avenue synagogue building in 1951, in Pikesville, on the border of Baltimore City and Baltimore County. a
William M. Halsey mural, Arnold Henry Bergier–designed
judaica for the sanctuary,
Amalie Rothschild cubist–designed tapestry and doors, and 16 stained–glass windows by Nissan Engel that depict the history of the Jewish people from
Creation to
the Holocaust and the
founding of the State of Israel. == The Day School at Baltimore Hebrew ==