הרב מוריס אייזנדרס ואשתו עם הגיעם להונולולו, הוואי, ארה"ב, 1950

Honolulu

A city on the island of Oahu and capital of Hawaii State, United States.

Honolulu has a small Jewish community whose numbers vary according to the tourist season. Local Jews are involved in the professions, local and national government, the tourist industry, and the military. There have been Jewish attorney-generals and a Jewish governor. 

Honolulu has a Conservative and Reform synagogue as well as a Chabad House which also has a kosher restaurant on its first floor. All offer religious services, and adult, child, and family education. Chabad also runs a summer camp, Gan Israel. Each also has its unique “Honolulu” character. When surfing is good, the Reform Temple will delay Friday night service to 11pm to accommodate the surfers. The Chabad House has an extra large pink surfboard over its front door with a stack of aloha-themed yalmulkas next to it. Hawaiian shirts and shorts are worn to services more often than suits. The Jewish Honolulu greeting is “Shaloha” ( a combination of shalom and aloha).

 Intermarriage rates are 80% -the highest of any in the United States. There are chapters of B’nai Brith and Hadassah.  Honolulu also hosts an annual Jewish film festival.  As of 2017, Hawaii’s Jewish population was approximately 7,100 – over half live in Honolulu.

History

The Jewish history of Hawaii is shrouded in myth. In 1798, Ebenezer Townsend Jr., a sailor on the Neptune whaling ship wrote in the ship’s log that the king came aboard the ship with a Jew cook.  It’s probable that Jewish traders from England and Germany came to Hawaii in the 1840s and some American Jews came from California at the end of the 19th century. They were merchants, suppliers to sugar plantations, and owned coffee plantations.  Elias Abraham Rosenberg came from San Francisco in 1886 and was an advisor and confidant (as well as poker partner) to King Kalakua of Hawaii and gave him a Torah scroll and pointer which the king would loan to the Jewish community for High Holy Day services until the 1930s.(In 1960 the Yad was presented to Temple Emanuel and in 1972 the Torah scroll was donated by the king’s descendants and these are housed in a special display case).

In 1901 forty residents formed the first Jewish synagogue, the Hebrew Congregation of Hawaii. They also established the first Jewish cemetery. The congregation only lasted six years. After World War I the Jewish Welfare Board sent Alexander and Jennie Linczer to Hawaii to form a JWB center, the Aloha Center, for Jewish military personnel.  They were later joined by Max Goldman and the Usheroff family as leaders in the Jewish community. They organized Temple Emanuel in 1938 when there were 35 families in Oahu.

In 1939, a small chapel was leased which served as a Jewish community center and synagogue. During WWII the JCC served the Jewish military stationed in Hawaii. In 1942 the Honolulu Jewish community established a Hebrew Burial Society and consecrated a section of the O’ahu Cemetery for use as a Jewish cemetery. The earlier Jewish cemetery was needed for airport extension because of the war and the bodies there were reinterred in the new cemetery.

Rabbi Emauel Kumin came to Hawaii in 1947 to serve as part time rabbi and director of the Jewish Welfare Board. A temple sisterhood was organized as well as a religious school. In 1950-51 the board adopted the name, Temple Emanuel, purchased a building, and hired its first full-time rabbi, Rabbi Francis Hevesi. In 1953 they affiliated with the Reform movement. The Temple continued to grow and in 1960 built a synagogue. They had 300-member families in the early 21st century.

In 1971, Congregation Sof Ma’arv, a Conservative synagogue was founded and in 1975 the Aloha Jewish Chapel built a synagogue in Pearl Harbor for military and ex-military families.

The community was serviced by Jewish Community Federation from 1991-1998. In 1998 Jewish Community Services took over.

In 1987 Rabbi Itchel and Perel Krasnjansky came to Honolulu to open a Chabad Center. A Mikvah was built in 2010 (renovated in 2023). On their website they describe themselves as follows:” In the middle of the largest ocean on earth, on the most isolated population center in the world, Yiddishkeit is thriving! In Honolulu you will find a dynamic Jewish community, Hebrew school, summer camp, daily minyanim, warm Shabbat gatherings, stimulating adult education, and plenty of aloha.”