Temple Emanu-El
Longview, Gregg County, Texas
Marker Inscription
During the early 1900s oil boom, many Jewish families settled in northeast Texas. Longview’s Temple Emanu-El (God is with us) has its origins in the 1936 Kilgore Temple Beth Sholom (House of Peace). For two decades, Jewish families traveled to Kilgore for services until a new temple was built in 1957-58 in Longview with fifty-four charter member families. The sanctuary is an architectural representation of a menorah. During its existence, the members worked to serve the community through education, outreach and fundraising. As the Jewish communities in the region began to decline, Longview’s Temple Emanu-El became the repository of Jewish activity and memory for the area. (2014)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The early-1900s oil boom drew Jewish families to the towns of northeast Texas, and by 1936 those scattered across the region gathered for worship in Kilgore's Temple Beth Sholom. Two decades later the community built its own sanctuary in Longview, shaped architecturally to evoke a menorah, and named it Temple Emanu-El, 'God is with us.' As the surrounding Jewish population thinned, the congregation became the keeper of the area's Jewish memory, education, and outreach.
Why it matters
It records how the oil economy carried small but vibrant Jewish communities into rural America, and how a single congregation can preserve a whole region's cultural and religious heritage even as its numbers fade.
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Related events
- · Early 1900s East Texas oil boom
Themes & tags
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