"[4] The order of prayers followed that of the Ashkenazi Great Synagogue of London, and the congregation sought the guidance of the British chief Rabbi Solomon Hirschell on matters of ritual.

[2] The first rabbi, Samuel Myer Isaacs, was appointed in 1839, but a public notice from 1845 indicates that there were disagreements over who should lead B'nai Jeshurun.

A building on Greene Street[6][7][8] was dedicated on September 25, 1851, and the Jewish newspaper Asmonean described the edifice and its builders as admirable.

The old location is now occupied by the back portion of the Hotel Pennsylvania, approximately where the loading dock and sports club entrance are situated.

The muqarna-studded ceiling was redesigned following its collapse during renovations in the early 1990s and was replaced with a future-invoking space frame back-lit to simulate a nighttime sky[25] B'nai Jeshurun's original founders broke from the city's only synagogue, Shearith Israel, in 1825, in order to create an Ashkenazi congregation.

In 1828, at a time of rapid growth in the New York Jewish community, a group left B'nai Jeshurun to found Ansche Chesed.

[26] In 1845, Temple Shaaray Tefila was founded by 50 primarily English and Dutch Jews who had been members of B'nai Jeshurun.

These activities took place prior to the founding of the Conservative movement, and both versions of the siddur following Orthodox practice.

[35][36] In 2018, B'nai Jeshurun announced its decision to officiate interfaith marriages if the couple promised to raise their children as Jews, exclusively.