The roots of Congregation Beth David extend back more than a century and a half, to a time when Jews from France and Germany came to this area, established family-run businesses, became landowners and created a flourishing Jewish life. In 1879, a Jewish Sabbath school was organized by the Jewish women of the community, serving twenty to thirty children weekly in the Odd Fellows Hall. Jeanette Sinsheimer was one of the founders. In March of 1886, the local press noted a Purim operetta presented by the Hebrew Sabbath School at the Lytton Theatre on Monterey Street, across the street from the Sinsheimer Brothers store. Five years later, a newspaper account listed 20 Jewish families and told of more than 100 people attending High Holiday services conducted by Abraham Blochman in the Masonic Hall.
Generations changed, families moved, and in the early 1900s Jewish influence and population diminished, but then a second migration of Jews arrived - thousands of Jewish servicemen trained for World War II at Camp Cooke, Camp San Luis Obispo and Camp Roberts, and a Jewish communal organization was created to serve their needs. Post-war, attention went to organizing a network of Jewish people and groups into the Amity Club that spanned from Paso Robles to Santa Maria.
Our Congregation’s Beginnings
Congregation Beth David was founded on November 23, 1959. The Temple's official charter was granted on June 12, 1960. As a UAHC affiliate, Congregation Beth David became eligible for visiting rabbinic services, and, for years afterward, it drew upon that resource as well as on the services of student rabbis.
It was a beginning. Services were held once, later twice, a month in meeting rooms - banks, churches and other locations rented rooms to the small congregation, often in Teamsters Hall at 531 Marsh Street. On September 9, 1960 Rabbi Glaser conferred the national charter on Congregation Beth David - the first nationally chartered Jewish organization in San Luis Obispo County. Two days later, Torah School convened. Beginning in 1961, services would be conducted twice each month, leadership alternating between visiting rabbis and local lay leaders. By June, less than year after it came into being and with the gift of an Ark and Torah Reading Table from Peninsula Temple Beth Shalom in Burlingame, the Board of Directors convened a special meeting on building plans and tentative plans to bring a rabbi to San Luis Obispo.
