Overview
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Religious Organizations
B'nai Jeshurun is a synagogue and Jewish community in New York's Upper West Side. Known as BJ, it counts as members about 1,800 households. It is the third-oldest Ashkenazi synagogue in the United States, founded in 1825. BJ experienced a spiritual and demographic renaissance beginning in 1985 with the arrival of Rabbi Marshall Meyer, a protégé of Abraham Joshua Heschel. Following the untimely death of Rabbi Meyer in 1993, Rabbi J. Rolando "Roly" Matalon assumed BJ’s rabbinic leadership; in 1995 Rabbi Marcelo Bronstein—another student of Rabbi Meyer—joined him in rabbinic partnership, and in 2001 Rabbi Felicia L. Sol became the third member of the spiritual leadership of the congregation. Hazzan Ari Priven has served as cantor and musical director at BJ since 1989.
