Congregation Beth Israel

Phineas De Cordova, one of the congregation's two founding leaders, was born in Philadelphia in 1819 and went to Jamaica to work in business. He married in 1847 and came to Texas that year, living in Galveston and Houston before moving to Austin in 1848 to work with his half-brother, Jacob De Cordova, on the Texas Herald. He also edited an Austin weekly, the Southwestern American. In the 1850s he opened a general land and agency business, which he ran with his son until poor health forced him to retire in the 1890s. He died in 1903.

What the plaque says

Congregation Beth Israel This congregation was organized in 1876 by about 30 charter members led by noted businessman Henry Hirschfeld and newspaper publisher Phineas de Cordova. In 1877 Beth Israel purchased a lot at 11th and San Jacinto Streets where the first synagogue was erected in 1884. Joe Koen began a 45-year term as president in 1889. The congregation bought land at Shoal Creek Blvd. and 38th Street in 1953; administration and school buildings were erected in 1957. A sanctuary was completed in 1967. A sanctuary was completed in 1967. Beth Israel continues to serve as a focal point for Austin's Jewish community. (1994)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Harry Ransom Center — 1.7 mi
  The University of Texas archive where a Gutenberg Bible and the earliest surviving camera photograph are always on view, free, beside the papers of Watergate and the movies.
• Mount Bonnell — 1.8 mi
  Austin's old lookout over the Colorado, named by an 1838 traveler, picnicked on by George and Libbie Custer, and reached by a 1939 flight of about 100 limestone steps.
• LBJ Presidential Library — 1.9 mi
  A ten-story travertine archive on the University of Texas campus holding 45 million pages from a presidency of civil rights laws, the War on Poverty and Vietnam.
• Bullock Texas State History Museum — 2.0 mi
  The state's history museum at the head of Congress Avenue, built around the hull of La Salle's ship La Belle, raised from Matagorda Bay with 1.8 million artifacts.

More markers nearby

• Texas in the Civil War - Federal Forces — 0.7 mi
• Jane Yelvington McCallum — 0.7 mi
• Camp Mabry — 0.7 mi
• Texas in the Civil War - Adjutants General — 0.7 mi