Congregation House of Israel

Located at 300 Quapaw Avenue in downtown Hot Springs (Garland County), the historic Congregation House of Israel celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2026. It is the only house of worship for Jewish people in the Hot Springs area and maintains one of the few full-time rabbis in Arkansas.

There were Jewish settlers in the Hot Springs area from the time that Jacob Kempner arrived in 1856. He operated the stagecoach that ran between Hot Springs and Little Rock (Pulaski County) before the coming of the railroad. By 1872, there were about twenty Jewish families in Hot Springs who worshipped together for regular prayer services in a small rented room but without a formal name.

In 1876, the group appointed Emanuel Burgauer to find a suitable location at which to build a permanent house of worship. That was accomplished in 1881 with the purchase of property on Central Avenue and Olive Street in downtown Hot Springs. Taking the name House of Israel, the temple was completed in 1885. The building was damaged by a fire in downtown Hot Springs in 1896, and while it was being rebuilt, worship services were conducted at the community’s First Methodist Church.

Also in 1876, the congregation established the Jewish Rest Cemetery, located on Summer Street near Albert Pike Road in Hot Springs. By 2026, there were almost 400 interments there, with graves dating back to the 1870s, many bearing inscriptions in Hebrew.

Another major fire burned downtown Hot Springs in 1905. The House of Israel building at Central and Olive was damaged, with many early records being destroyed by the flames. The congregation sold that lot, purchasing land at the corner of Quapaw and Market Streets, where the current building is located. A new temple was constructed on the Quapaw and Market site around 1905. Another Hot Springs fire, this one in 1913, spared much of the new building, but historical records were again consumed. Bernard Gross, a member of the congregation, rushed into the flames to save the temple’s precious Torah scroll, which is still in use by the congregation in the twenty-first century. Another catastrophic event for downtown Hot Springs, the Flood of 1923, once again took a toll on the congregation’s historical records.

Throughout the twentieth century, members of Congregation House of Israel played significant roles in the civic and economic life of Hot Springs. Some owned small businesses selling clothes, confections, furniture, groceries, and tobacco as well as operating funeral homes, kosher restaurants, pharmacies, and tailor shops. Members of the congregation such as Bernard Gross and J. C. Wolf served on the city council, while pharmacist Ernst Klein was on the Hot Springs school board.

Some members of Congregation House of Israel owned hotels and restaurants that catered to Jewish people who came to Hot Springs. The temple welcomed out-of-town visitors to worship with them, whether they had traveled to Hot Springs for leisure or to treat medical problems that would supposedly be alleviated by the town’s thermal waters. The rabbi at the House of Israel felt there was a need for a hospital to serve the many poor Jewish people who sought healing in Hot Springs. He approached B’nai B’rith (“Children of the Covenant”), a national Jewish service organization, for help. From those efforts, the Leo N. Levi Memorial Hospital opened in 1914, serving patients of all faiths. Levi Hospital employed some members of Congregation House of Israel, including Regina Kaplan, who served as director of the nursing school from 1916 to 1951.

In 1957, the congregation added an administration area that included an office, classrooms, a study for the rabbi, and an auditorium named for the Burgauer family. The sanctuary that had been built in 1905 was replaced beginning in 1961 with the one still in use in the twenty-first century. Designed by noted local architect Granger McDaniel, it was completed in 1965, with an interior combining rock and native wood. An incline from the pulpit to the Ark that contains the Torah symbolizes the ascent up Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments.

By the late 1960s, there were several hundred Jewish residents in the Hot Springs area. However, at that time, the town’s economy was in decline. Advanced medical treatments for many health problems decreased the number of visitors who had traditionally come to the town’s bathhouses. Also during the late 1960s, the state of Arkansas cracked down on illegal gambling in Hot Springs, a pursuit that had previously bolstered tourism. The downturn in the Hot Springs travel industry led to the closing of most of the kosher restaurants and hotels catering to Jewish visitors.

Throughout its history, Congregation House of Israel has traditionally maintained warm relationships with other houses of worship. For example, in 1981, following the untimely death of Rabbi Percy Goldberg during the sacred High Holy Days, his sermon was delivered by Goldberg’s friend, the Reverend Doug Dickens of Hot Springs’s First Baptist Church.

In 1989, Congregation House of Israel appointed Angela Graboys-Rudner as its rabbi. Serving until 1991, she was the first full-time female rabbi in Arkansas. The congregation enjoys an active slate of activities, including the publication of its bimonthly digital newsletter The Shofar.

On May 8, 2026, there was a celebration at the temple honoring the 150th anniversary of Emanuel Burgauer’s successful effort to find a permanent home for what became today’s Congregation House of Israel.

For additional information:
Congregation House of Israel. https://hschi.org/ (accessed September 30, 2026).

“Gallery: Hot Springs’ Earliest Churches.” Hot Springs Sentinel-Record, August 1, 2021. https://www.hotsr.com/photos/galleries/2021/aug/01/time-tour-hot-springs-earliest-churches/ (accessed September 30, 2026).

“Hot Springs, Arkansas.” Encyclopedia of Southern Jewish Communities. https://www.isjl.org/arkansas-hot-springs-encyclopedia.html (accessed September 30, 2026).

LeMaster, Carolyn Gray. A Corner of the Tapestry: A History of the Jewish Experience in Arkansas, 1820s–1990s. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1994.

Lockwood, Frank E. “Sisterhood Sabbath Service Marks Temples 150th.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, May 30, 2026, pp. 4B, 5B. Online at https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2026/may/29/sisterhood-sabbath-service-marks-hot-springs/ (accessed September 30, 2026).

Robbins, Elizabeth. “Time Tour: Hot Springs’ Earliest Churches.” Hot Springs Sentinel-Record, August 1, 2021. https://www.hotsr.com/news/2021/aug/01/time-tour-hot-springs-earliest-churches/ (accessed September 30, 2026).

Nancy Hendricks
Garland County Historical Society