As the first Monday Night Lecture Series interactive talk of 5776, Dr. Elissa Sampson will present how our synagogue was improbably established in 1940 as a new Orthodox congregation, long after the area’s Jewish population had peaked circa 1911. She will explore history’s little mysteries such as why Community Synagogue is called by that very name. And why, oh why, does the organ protrude into the ceiling—and why do we even have an organ? Learn about the very special history as an integral part of a neighborhood that once was the world's largest Jewish city, in a building that reflects the Lower East Side’s past over time.

Pizza and beer will be served! RSVP by November 12.

Dr. Elissa Sampson, PhD Geography
Elissa Sampson is an urban geographer whose interests focus on how the past is actively used to create new geographies of migration, memory and heritage. Her research interests include Lower East Side migration; American Jewish culture; Triangle Fire commemoration, historical preservation; museums and heritage and the gentrification of global cities. She has lived most of her life on New York’s Lower East Side and has spent over twenty years showing the historic neighborhood and its living communities to visitors and residents.