We are a highly engaged and active Reconstructionist congregation, where all are welcome. Our doors are open to unaffiliated and interfaith families — observant, progressive, those who are just learning, and to anyone wanting to explore Jewish identity and rituals.
Congregation Agudas Achim is a voice for Judaism in the southeastern Massachusetts and northern Rhode Island Reconstructionist movement. While creating a community for members of all ages, our gateway to Jewish living will offer a comfortable, warm, and inviting experience for all. By integrating religious, social, and educational programs, our goal is to enable every members to become a learner and every learner a teacher. In this way, we will assure that future generations will recognize the significance of our ancestral heritage and traditions while embracing their role in shaping our community.
Congregation Agudas Achim seeks to create and maintain a welcoming and inclusive community. We strive to include the voices of all members. We envision a community where members take ownership of congregational life. We value life-long learning, including a process for intergenerational learning.
Congregation Agudas Achim has been at the center of Jewish life in Attleboro since 1908, but Judaism has a long history in the city and surrounding region. The first Jewish families to settle in the Town of Attleborough held regular Saturday services in private homes with a Torah borrowed from a community in Providence.
By 1910, enough families had moved in to necessitate the rental of a small hall (on Emory Street) for High Holy Day services. Afternoon mincha prayers were held in several local shops on Park Street. A runner was often sent to gather a minyan from the Jewish shop owners in downtown Attleboro. A year later in 1911, seven families formed the Agudas Achim Congregation, and purchased the Swedish Evangelical Church on Pearl Street. The congregation numbered more than twenty founding families at that time.
Benjamin Grovitz, a shochet (kosher butcher), became the first rabbi of Congregation Agudas Achim, serving the community for about 5 years. Thereafter, a new rabbi was hired every two or three years. During the Depression and until 1953 there was no rabbi in residence; services continued to be held at the synagogue under the leadership of Abraham and Charles Fine.
Rabbi Weiss was hired in 1953 and served for two years. In 1955, Rabbi Isadore Pickholtz joined the community and served until 1961. In 1961, the congregation celebrated its 50th anniversary with a banquet at Lake Pearl Manor, which at the time was owned by the Weinstein family and was a kosher facility. Rabbi Harold Roth served the community from 1963 to 1965. In 1965, Rabbi Phillip Kaplan came to Attleboro with his family and remained until 1977. In June 1966, cousins Carol, Susan, and Gail Rotenberg all became Bas Mitzvah at the synagogue. At that time, girls celebrated Bat Mitzvah on Friday nights and they were called “confirmands.”
As the decade progressed, the idea of building a larger space for worship began to take hold, and in 1967, the London family donated land for a new synagogue and ground was broken at 901 North Main Street.
The building, shown in the image at the top of this page, was designed by local architect Harold Washburn who described the roof as “a contemporary interpretation of the catenary curve form taken by the ancient Hebrew sanctuary-tent.” The new synagogue—still home to our congregation—was dedicated on a sunny June 15, 1968. More than 1,500 visitors passed through the open doors of this congregation to witness and be a part of its historic dedication.
Through most of the 1980s and into the 1990s Congregation Agudas Achim supported itself by running a bingo hall on Tuesday evening. Staffed primarily by synagogue volunteers, bingo nights were as much about socializing as bringing revenue into the community. For the next decade, spiritual services were conducted by part-time rabbis from Boston and Massachusetts. High holy day services were contracted with rabbis and a cantor. Most of these rabbis were from the Conservative Jewish movement, which was a change from the Orthodox rabbis of previous decades.
In 1988, the congregation hired Andrea Gouze, its first Reconstructionist rabbi. She served the congregation for three years and introduced the concepts of Reconstructive Judaism. That work was continued by Rabbi Moshe Halfon in1991, followed by Rabbi Gail Diamond in 1993 for seven years before she made aliyah to Israel.
Rabbi Elyse Wechterman was hired to serve the congregation in 2001. Under her leadership the congregation was awarded numerous innovation grants from the Jewish Federation of Rhode Island, including a joint Outreach Grant with Congregation Beth Israel in Woonsocket. Congregation Agudas Achim was the recipient, in partnership with Jewish Family Service, of an initiative grant to create and pilot the Kesher program, a project that places JFS social workers within the congregation to better serve the needs of the changing community. In 2007, Congregation Agudas Achim was one of only four congregations nationwide to receive four full years of funding through the Legacy Heritage Innovation Project for creative innovation in congregational learning.
In 2011 Congregation Agudas Achim celebrated its centennial with a full slate of festivities, including a gala at the Attleboro Art Museum. A fourth Torah scroll was acquired in honor of the occasion, and special recognition was given to the families who founded the congregation in 1911. In 2015 Rabbi Elyse ended her tenure at the synagogue; she was named the new executive director of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, and she and her family moved to Philadelphia.
Rabbis Leora Abelson (left) and Alex Weissman
Rabbi Margot Meitner served as the community’s interim spiritual leader in 2014–15. For the 2015 High Holidays, Rabbi Gail Diamond visited from Israel to lead the services. Soon after the holidays, Rabbi Carolan Glatstein joined the congregation and remained with us through June 2016, when she and her husband relocated to Charlotte, NC to jointly lead a congregation.
The congregation hired Leora Abelson 2016 while she was in her final year of rabbinical school. She was ordained in June 2017, and Rabbi Leora served the congregation through June 2020.
Rabbi Alex Weissman led the congregation through the Covid-19 pandemic from July 2020 through June 2022, conducting multiple unique b’nei mitzvot and high holiday services via Zoom.
Rabbi Tayla Weisbard Shalem became our community’s spiritual leader in July 2022.
