Temple B'Nai Israel (Olean, New York)


Temple B'Nai Israel is a Conservative movement congregation, and was established in 1894 as the Olean Hebrew Association located in Olean, Cattaraugus County, New York.
B'Nai Israel's current synagogue building is a three- to four-story tall, light brown brick structure with terra cotta decorative details. Built in 1929, it measures 85 feet long, 42 feet wide, and 50 feet tall. The front facade features a massive arched terra cotta portal encircling a large, round stained glass window. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.
Both the temple and the congregation were established by Harris W. Marcus, a native of Mobile, Alabama who had come from Brooklyn and settled in Olean in 1881, establishing the first Jewish community in the region. Its attendance peaked during the World War II era as Jewish communities joined in solidarity against the ongoing Holocaust. A Sefer Torah was donated in 1941 by Oscar Rosenbloom, a local merchant.
, synagogue membership had fallen to 23 families. At the time, B'Nai Israel still held regular services twice a month, but was reported to be in jeopardy of closing within the decade because of the ongoing exodus of young people away from the Olean area. In July 2019, the synagogue announced that it would be closing after Yom Kippur services that fall as it seeks to rent a smaller facility; the Temple will be sold to a local community theater organization after the closure. The sale would make the Temple the second standalone performance venue in Cattaraugus County, alongside the Ray Evans Seneca Theater in Salamanca. A zoning variance was unanimously approved in August to allow the conversion. A Torah originally donated to the congregation was reunited with a family member of the original donor in 2019, Oscar Rosenbloom Jr., who then donated it to Camp Towonga, a Jewish youth summer camp outside Yosemite National Park in Northern California.