Temple of Aaron Hebrew School, St. Paul

In 1916, the newly formed Conservative synagogue, Temple of Aaron, located at Ashland and Grotto, established a Hebrew School to provide a Jewish education to the children of descendants of Eastern Europe Jewry, many of whom had initially settled on Saint Paul’s West Side River Flats.  The school took a modern approach to teach, using Hebrew (rather than Yiddish) to teach Hebrew. By 1926, the school had an enrollment of 250 students and had outgrown its space.   At this time the congregation decided to separate the school from the synagogue by renaming it the Temple of Aaron Community School. The school opened its enrollment to children of non-congregants and began to raise funds for a separate school building.  In 1930 the Jewish Educational Center was erected on land at the corner of Holly and Grotto, donated by the Temple of Aaron.  It housed the Temple of Aaron Community School, now known as Center Hebrew School, as well as space for other leisure time activities.  The Capital City Free Hebrew School and the Center Hebrew School merged in 1944 and in 1958 became the Talmud Torah of Saint Paul housed in a building adjoining Temple of Aaron’s new synagogue located at 616 S. Mississippi River Boulevard.