The Vilna Shul was built in 1919 to serve the Jewish community on Beacon Hill as a synagogue and community center. Although it closed in 1985, the building has been restored as a Jewish cultural center. Before they built the synagogue, the congregation of Lithuanian Jews worshipped in temporary spaces for nearly twenty-five years.
They named the synagogue for the city of Vilnius, because they considered it to be the center of Jewish culture in Lithuania. Many of the original members of the congregation emigrated from Vilnius where there was a large and thriving Jewish community.
Only a few decades later it was destroyed by the Holocaust. The names of the women who were among the founding members of the synagogue are listed on a plaque in the back of the sanctuary. Although the entire congregation sat on the same level, the women’s section was separate from the men’s section but equal in size (which was typical of synagogues of that time). The Vilna Shul is also a significant site because it represents the large Jewish community who made their first Boston homes in the old West End and on the north slope of Beacon Hill.
