Congregation Beth Israel Ner Tamid (Milwaukee)

In 1884 Congregation B'ne Jacob was formed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. By 1886 it had split into two congregations, Moses Montefiore Gemeinde and Anshe Jacob. In 1891 they re-amalgamated, creating Beth Hamedrash Hagadol, and the following year hired Solomon Isaac Scheinfeld as the congregation's first permanent rabbi. Scheinfeld had been born in Lithuania in 1860, and had moved to Milwaukee soon after receiving semicha in 1890. He stayed less than a year before moving to Kentucky. Scheinfeld served as Beth Israel's rabbi until his death in 1943. Rabbi Harold Baumrind served until the split/move, and then became rabbi for those who continued more orthodox practices at the new Beth Hamedrosh Hagodol B'nai Sholom on 50th and Center Street for several years. ==Teutonia building==

Beth Israel sold its Fifth Street building in 1924, and, after meeting in temporary quarters for a year, constructed a new building at 2432 North Teutonia Avenue. That new building had a rectangular footprint and gable roof, with walls of brown brick and the front flanked by two square towers with Byzantine-styled copper domes. The windows included the six-pointed Star of David. Inside, the sanctuary displayed a wooden ark on four columns, four ceremonial chairs, and the tablets of the Ten Commandments, all of which have been moved to the new synagogue. As the Jewish community of Milwaukee migrated north to suburbs in the 1940s and 1950s, the location became inconvenient. In 1957, a property was purchased at 6880 North Green Bay Avenue in Glendale, a suburb north of Milwaukee, and construction began on new facilities there in 1959. The Teutonia Avenue building was sold in 1959, and vacated in 1960. ==Move from Orthodox to Conservative Judaism==

Beth Israel was founded as an Orthodox synagogue, and its rabbi, Solomon Scheinfeld, also served as chief rabbi of the United Orthodox Congregations of Milwaukee. The congregation associated with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, ==1960s to 1990s==

Beth Israel's current facilities were built in three phases. ==Events since 2000==

Toronto native Mitchell Joshua Martin, a graduate of the cantorial school at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTSA), joined as cantor in 2002. In August, 2008, Fortunée Belilos joined as interim cantor. The following July, the synagogue hired as cantor Jeremy Stein, who had graduated that year from the JTSA's cantorial school. A graduate of the University of California, Davis, he was ordained by the JTSA in 1996. Before coming to Beth Israel, he served as assistant and then senior rabbi of Philadelphia's Har Zion Temple. His rabbinate there was a subject of the book The New Rabbi by Stephen Fried. Funded by congregation members and the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, Herber traveled to Uganda in July 2008 to assist in the Abayudaya in converting to Judaism. That year the congregation had 700 member families. Rabbi Joel Alter has served CBINT since 2018. Ordained at Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in New York in 1996, Rabbi Alter began his rabbinic career as a teacher, administrator, and school rabbi in Jewish day schools in DC, Baltimore, and Boston. He returned to New York to recruit new rabbis and cantors to JTS as its director of admissions, focusing on the American Jewish community's contemporary religious needs. Rabbi Alter moved to Milwaukee with his twin daughters, Ayelet and Annael, to lead a congregation for the first time. , Beth Israel Ner Tamid was the only synagogue in Milwaukee associated with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. Currently, the rabbi is Joel Alter, the cantor is Jeremy Stein, and the president is Menachem Graupe. ==Notes==