The one hundredth anniversary of the founding of our congregation is coincident with the 350th anniversary of the coming of the first Jews to America. In 1654 twenty three Jewish refugees landed on the shores of Dutch Colonial New Amsterdam. They were fleeing Brazil and the Inquisition when their French ship was attacked by pirates. They were robbed of all their possessions and they arrived destitute in America. The anti-semitism of governor Peter Stuyvesant was eventually overcome by legal actions, and Jewish settlers were permitted to reside permanently in New Amsterdam.

Similarly the first Jews who arrived in Aurora were leaving their European homes. The first immigrants, as far as we know, came to Aurora from Germany in the middle of the nineteenth century. By the time the next wave of immigration, from Eastern Europe, began at the turn of the century, few of these German Jewish families were left. Those that were here had become successful in their professions but were not particularly religious. It was the families from the second wave that came together in an organized way to pray and to interact socially. This history of the Aurora Jewish Community focuses on this group while it recognizes the valuable assistance and support given by their German Jewish predecessors at key times in the early decades of the twentieth century.

Over the last hundred years there have been several histories of the Temple, which can correctly be called "the Jewish Community" because until perhaps very recently the two have been intertwined. The Temple was the center of the Jewish community in Aurora and its environs. The events that led to the creation of these early histories were usually anniversary celebrations and in the early years were based on the recollections of those who were still young enough to share their memories. The first brief memory tract was published in 1937, the tenth anniversary of the dedication of the Lincoln Avenue Synagogue, the first real building. This was followed in 1940 with a history in connection with the "Bar Mitzvah," the 13th anniversary, of the building. While everyone had to be aware of the 1904 founding year, the benchmark for celebration was chosen to be the 1927 building dedication.

The idea of saving documents in the early days of the congregation may have been considered but it was not implemented until the incorporation of the Young Men's Hebrew Association of Aurora (Y.M.H.A.) in 1923. Because the predecessor organization was not legally established, there was little pressure to generate or retain documents. In 1923, as an incorporated non-profit organization we were required to elect officers, hold board meetings, and maintain minutes. We owe the preservation of the first sixteen years of board minutes to a young man, Norman Israel, who worked in the Temple office in the 1930s. He retrieved the Board of Directors minutes, beginning with the first Board of Directors meeting in 1923, through 1939. From various hand written pages he retyped the documents on archival paper, indicating that he was doing this for future historians.

Norman Israel's work set the stage for the archives we have today. Major credit goes to Edith Katz for her foresight and persistence for the collection and care of Temple documents, artifacts and photos and also for the establishment in the 1980s of the position of Temple Historian, whose role mainly was to collect and store documents of all kinds found in every corner of the building and in the homes of our members. To formalize this effort the Board of Directors in 1999 unanimously adopted this Archive Mission Statement:
 

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We wish to thank the group of individuals who were interviewed for this history. Their memories were particularly valuable. It is our plan to produce a separate booklet of these interviews next year.