In 1654, two Jewish traders arrived in New Amsterdam from Holland.  A few weeks later, this community of two was increased by the arrival of twenty-three Jewish exiles from Brazil, ten adults and thirteen children. The new arrivals had been captured by Spanish pirates and "rescued" by an all-business, French privateer captain.  Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch governor of New Amsterdam, immediately sought to expel all Jews from the colony, but the antagonistic and intolerant Stuyvesant was brought to heel by his employers, the Dutch West India Company, which was dependent on the support of Jewish investors in Holland.  Asser Levy, one of the Jewish refugees, became the first man of the Jewish faith to own a house in North America.

Temple Beth Abraham

Like so many historical developments in the Hudson Valley, the growth of the Jewish community in river towns like Briarcliff, Irvington, Sleepy Hollow, and Tarrytown can be traced to Manhattan.  In the case of Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown, it is impossible to state precisely who first settled here, but one local tradition credits Abraham Levy as the first Jewish "pioneer" to put down roots in the community.  More Jewish families followed Abraham, and it appears that the dry goods store of Abraham's son, Hyman, became the first religious meeting place.  In 1905 the first community temple was built at the corner of Valley Street and College Avenue.  The family names of the earliest members of the temple included the following: Alschul, Benjamin, Cartoon, Cohen, Goldman, Jacobs, Kadish, Levy, Rosenblatt, and Sadofsky.  According to Ruth Biloon's temple history, the first structure was built in the old-world "style of the synagogues in Kovno, Lithuania, where many of the original founding families had come from.  It had large stained glass windows, red carpeting, and a central bima surrounded on three sides with pews...."

Tarrytown native, Leonard Abraham, who this year celebrated his 100th birthday, was born just six years after the old temple was built.  "It was a simple building," he recalls, "the men met on the main floor and the women in the balcony – only about 100 seats.  It stood on property loaned to the congregation by the Hyman Levy family."  Hyman Levy was an early temple president and his wife was instrumental in forming and leading the Hebrew Ladies Auxilliary.  The Levys were prosperous landowners, and their commodious, former home still stands on Broadway, opposite Sleepy Hollow High School.  The fathers of the early Jewish families worked primarily as shopkeepers in the Cortlandt and Orchard Streets business district.

Leonard Abraham was born on June 15, 1911, at 46 Main Street, in a house that once stood on the site of the present firehouse at the corner of Main and Washington Streets.  His parents, Benjamin David and Dora Weiss Abraham, had moved from New York City in 1905, where the father had a tailoring business on Park Avenue.  Leonard had two older sisters, and he was the first of two boys.  The second-floor apartment of the Main Street house had no bathroom, but an outhouse in the backyard.  Mr. Abraham's shop was on the first floor of the building.  Early on, Benjamin Abraham's two brothers joined him in the business, and they added a clothing store next to the tailor shop, calling it Abraham Brothers.  In time, Leonard's family moved across the hall to a neighboring apartment at number 48 Main Street, where they could enjoy the luxury of a bathroom.

Rabbi Gordon was the temple's first rabbi of the Sleepy Hollow temple on Valley Street.  Leonard remembers that the rabbi lived, at first, above Cartoon's furniture store and later bought a house on Cottage Place.  He was a shochet, or ritual slaughterer, at the kosher butcher shop owned by a Mr. Guttman on Cortlandt Street, and he would also bring kosher meats up from the city.  Rabbi Gordon served the temple until his death in 1932.

Leonard recalls starting to attend Orthodox temple services at about the age of six, and he celebrated his bar mitzvah in 1924, the year that the Abraham family bought a house at 37 South Washington Street, next to Asbury Methodist Church.  The families of all three brothers moved to Washington Street.  Leonard attended Tarrytown public schools, which meant going to kindergarten in the church hall of Christ Church, and first grade in the church hall of the Second

Reformed Church, since Pierson School (then called Washington Irving School) was bursting at the seams.  Upon graduating from the grade school, Leonard graduated in the first four-year class produced by the new Washington Irving School at Franklin Street.

During Leonard's childhood days he was often left to his own devices, hanging out with a gang of kids on Main Street. There was a movie theatre in the building that now houses the VFW, and when money was short they found a way to sneak into screenings.  In that day, most of the businesses on Main Street were located at the lower end; further up the hill, the buildings were more residential.  The Music Hall was there too, and he remembers that one of his sisters appeared in one of its flower shows.  His younger brother worked for a time at Tappan's Livery Service where he exercised the horses that Tappan provided to boys in the local boarding schools.

At temple, the girls formed a Young Women's Hebrew Association (1918) and the boys (including Leonard) participated in a Jewish Boy Scout Troop.  In 1933, a new Jewish Center ("one big room") was built at 114 North Washington Street; it was to also serve as a place for Conservative services, with a space for Torah scrolls built into the wall.  By that time, Leonard had graduated from NYU with a degree in engineering.  Adhering to the adage, "don't let a degree stand in the way of a job," Leonard took a clerical position at the Sleepy Hollow GM plant, where he remained until the plant was switched to airplane production for World War II.  He married Sylvia Projanski of White Plains, and Leonard and Sylvia remained a part of Tarrytown village life, residing on Hamilton Place, Miller Avenue and then buying a house in Loh Park in 1935.  They also remained involved in temple life and saw the new temple completed in 1955, right across Leroy Avenue from their own home.  During the 1970s, Leonard would become the president of Temple Beth Abraham's congregation.

Congregation Sons of Israel

Congregation Sons of Israel in Briarcliff had a similar but separate evolution.  The seeds were sown in Ossining, in 1891.  It was the spiritual child of eleven Orthodox men with the family names of Feinberg, Myers, Levy, Altman, Hyams, Macy, Hart, Cohen, and Philipson.  They called their community "Bnai Yisrael" – the Sons of Israel.

At first the men met where they could, including the old Spring Street location of Myers Furniture Store.  In 1902, they bought land for a cemetery on Havell Street, neighboring Dale Cemetery.  There was no synagogue until a clapboard house was purchased a short distance from the prison on Hunter Street (then called Durston Avenue) in 1908.  They hired Rabbi Sandler, who performed the duties of rabbi, cantor, shochet, and teacher, for two dollars per week.  The Hebrew Sisterhood of CSI was formed in 1910, and a Talmud Torah, or Hebrew School, was created in 1918.

In time, the congregation outgrew its building, and a new synagogue was built on Waller Avenue in 1923.  The twelve-dollar yearly dues were paid in fifty-cent installments at the bi-weekly full membership meetings.  The 1930s brought change, and English was introduced to the services.  Perhaps the synagogue's most significant celebration of the 1940s was that of Israel's statehood, on May 27, 1948.  During this period, the congregation transitioned toward Conservatism, and affiliated with the United Synagogue of America.

In 1959, the cornerstone for a new synagogue was laid at the former Meade Farm on Pleasantville Road in Briarcliff.  Upon completion, a candlelight procession bought the Torah scrolls from the old synagogue to the new one.  Four years later, the congregation resolved that women would have "voting and membership rights equal to men," but it was not until the high holiday services of 1974 that a woman, Lillian Dworkin, read from the Torah.

The congregation continued to grow during the next twenty years.  After it moved to Briarcliff in 1960, many more Jewish families had been attracted to the village.  By 1994, a major expansion of the synagogue facilities was called for.  The result was an additional 12,752 square feet of new space, and a renovation of parts of the existing building.  This year CSI, or Congregation Sons of Israel, celebrated its 120th anniversary. 

In closing, I would like to acknowledge Irwin Kavy, Gordon Levy, Ellen Johnson, and Sara Mascia for their help with the content of this piece.

Henry John Steiner is the village historian of Sleepy Hollow and the managing broker of Steiner Real Estate Associates;  henry@SteinerRealEstateAssociates.com

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