group had rented a room downtown, on Penn Avenue and Sixth Street, and formed a congregation called Shaare Shemayim (Gate of Heaven). They practiced Orthodox Judaism.

The congregation's charter, dated November 9, 1856, gives as its primary objectives "the furtherance of the cause of Religion" and "the establishment of a good school in which the young shall be instructed in the principles of the Hebrew Religion as well as general branches of knowledge."

Over the next eight years, some members

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