There’s a lot of buzz about the 250th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence this upcoming July 4. What D.C.-area residents may not know is that it’s also a milestone year for the Capital Jewish Museum.
The brick building at the intersection of Third and F Streets Northwest has a 150-year history in Jewish Washington.
“When you enter the museum this summer, we will have a new display right in front of you that digs into the history of the historic synagogue building itself,” said Beatrice Gurwitz, CJM’s executive director. “This is a building that visitors will learn has been moved three different times to different locations before it was moved to its final spot.”
Originally at the corner of Sixth and G Streets, the building was dedicated by Adas Israel Congregation in June 1876, in time for the U.S. centennial. The coinciding milestones weren’t an accident.
“It was important to [Adas Israel] to be part of the Washington landscape in time for July 4,” Gurwitz said. “They were declaring themselves as part of the D.C. community and the American nation in time for the centennial.”
Formed in 1869, Adas Israel is the oldest building purposely designed to be a synagogue in the nation’s capital. It was the second congregation built in the district, the first being Washington Hebrew Congregation.
Adas Israel relocated to a new building in 1908, and the original brick building housed retailers and several houses of worship.
The late 1960s plan for a Metro system and Metro headquarters threatened to demolish the building. In 1969, a group of Jewish locals banded together and lobbied Congress to save the precious space. They picked up the building, put it on wheels and transported it down the street.
The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington restored the synagogue and upkept the site as a historical resource. For the next 40 years, the building housed Jewish programming, rentals for events and educational activities.
As part of the 2016 Capitol Crossing development project, the historic building began the move to its current location. The synagogue moved for the third time in 2019 to the corner of Third and F Streets, where CJM opened in 2023.
A new reader rail and a mural in the museum will detail this history, from the building’s 1876 origins to the present day.
“This is a story that we tell every day in the museum because it’s the historic synagogue that lies at the heart of the contemporary museum,” Gurwitz said. “We’re also calling attention to it this summer because of the 150th and the 250th.”
CJM is hosting programming and showcasing special displays to explore the intersection of these two anniversaries. The museum will have a “250 takeover” of its lobby cases, where Jonathan Edelman, CJM’s curator, displays new content every few months. Edelman will display artifacts commemorating America’s 1776 founding from three moments in time: 1876, 1926 and 1976.
“We’re going to be digging into other moments that Jews have celebrated the Declaration of Independence, and we’ll be considering how they took these opportunities to claim space in the national narrative and to celebrate Jewish life in the U.S.,” Gurwitz said.
One such moment is the 1876 dedication of the historic synagogue building, attended by President Ulysses S. Grant to as a way to make amends for an antisemitic general order he issued during the Civil War.
1926 was the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and 1976 was the nation’s bicentennial.
“We have artifacts from each of these moments to explore how Jews made sense of that moment [and] of how they talked about Jewish belonging in the nation around those times,” Gurwitz said.
“When you look at the commemoration in 1976 and 1926 and 1876, these are going to look different, depending not just on the president, but on the community’s place in the city, how people are feeling about being Jewish in Washington in different eras, and that might affect different ways we tell this story about Jewish belonging, about patriotism, about all these kinds of issues we’re thinking about this summer,” said Sarah Leavitt, CJM’s director of curatorial affairs. “I want people to have the opportunity to see how Jewish history fits into American history.”
“And then throughout the lobby [and] in the halls of the museum, people will be able to explore other stories related to the theme of the 150th and 250th [anniversaries],” Gurwitz said.
The Mordecai Bible, a family bible that documented its births and deaths, is among the foundational artifacts on display at CJM. There, viewers will see the record of the birth of the first Jewish baby in Washington, Rosa Mordecai. Though Baby Rosa was born in 1839, the Mordecai Bible dates back far earlier.
“When the family was in Philadelphia, somebody’s bar mitzvah portion from 177[5] is circled,” Leavitt said. “So it’s old. That is our oldest and probably one of our most precious artifacts.”
She is most excited about a “giant” 20th-century needle-pointed tapestry. In 1976, the Jewish Bicentennial Committee of Greater Washington began meeting to plan for the milestone, wanting to get Jewish history on people’s radar that summer.
“They’re anticipating millions of people coming to D.C. and they want to capitalize on that,” said Leavitt, who pored over the committee’s meeting minutes, housed at George Washington University’s Special Collections Research Center.
“I’m looking through the papers, and they’re having a bunch of meetings … and then they start talking about this tapestry,” Leavitt recalled.
The committee had commissioned a work of art to be painted onto a needlepoint tapestry and cut into 62 parts. They had artists “audition” their needlework skills, eventually accepting dozens of women and one man.
One of the participants traveled to Europe to source the wool that’s woven into the tapestry. The painted design, “Freedom Road,” symbolically ties the Jewish story to the American one.
“This idea that the Jews escaped from slavery in Egypt was akin to America’s escape from England,” Leavitt said. “This kind of biblical story of liberation kind of put Jews into the story of the American Revolution.”
Interested in acquiring this abstract art — with motifs of ladders — Leavitt found that the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum had the 10-by-14-foot tapestry. It had been displayed around the bicentennial at a district synagogue, then put into storage for decades.
“[The USHMM has] agreed to transfer the tapestry over to us, so … it is now ours,” Leavitt said. “It is part of the Jewish history of Washington. It’s a Washington local story, so we’re really excited to have it in our collection. And we decided if we’re ever going to display it, this is the summer.”
CJM will hold an opening reception on June 10 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the historic synagogue. The following evening, Gurwitz will moderate a discussion with two professors about how we tell this nation’s origin story.
Visitors of the museum can also record their own stories. In a community time capsule to be opened 50 years from now, CJM will collect responses to the question, “What do you want folks in 2076 to know about Jewish life in D.C. in 2026?”
Jewish Washingtonians can contribute ephemera — such as a button from a rally attended this year — that speak to the current moment in American and American Jewish history.
“It’s just important to join into this commemoration of the 250th anniversary of America and think about how Jewish history fits into American history,” Leavitt said. “That’s always something we’re looking to do … I think anytime you have a historic building, you’re going to look at those kind of 25-year increments and celebrate when you can.”
