Documentation records note Prince Street in Newark as a being one of the earliest, relatively clandestine places of Jewish settlement and worship (primarily Sephardic Jews of Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian descent) in the colonial and early American eras.
The later arriving Ashkenazi Jews of Newark accommodated to the areas in and around Prince Street, named for one of the original anglicized Sephardic family names.
History
The modest, Moorish Revival building at 32 Prince Street was built in 1884 for Oheb Shalom Congregation, a congregation of Bohemian Jews. The congregation has since moved to South Orange. The building served as the home of the Metropolitan Baptist Church from 1940 to 1993. In 1990 it was slated for destruction as part of land clearance to enable the construction of Newark's Society Hill housing development. Historic preservationist Mark W. Gordon led a movement to preserve the historic building.[3][4]
^The New Jersey Churchscape: Encountering Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Churches, Frank L. Greenagel, Rutgers University Press, 2001, p. 93
^Rediscovering Jewish Infrastructure: Update on United
States Nineteenth Century Synagogues, Mark W. Gordon, American Jewish History 84.1 (1996) 11-27. 2019 article update.
^"A History of the City of Newark, New Jersey.", embracing Practically Two and a Half Centuries 1666 - 1913, published by the Lewis Historical Publishing Col. New York & Chicago, in 1913
