[6] Membership dropped during the Great Depression, and the synagogue suffered financial hardship, but it recovered, and by 1941 had 1,100 member families.

[3] East Midwood was organized in 1924[12] by Jacob R. Schwartz, a dentist who was concerned that his two sons had no nearby Hebrew school which they could attend.

Prior to moving to Flatbush, Pincus Weinberg had been president of Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes.

The cornerstone was laid in 1926, and, although not complete, the building was fully enclosed by the autumn, and High Holiday services were held there that year.

In order to cope with the financial burdens, dues were raised, teachers were given endorsed notes rather than paychecks, the Executive Secretary was laid off, pews were sold, and individual members provided mortgage guarantees.

[26] Lindsay was heckled off the podium by the audience inside, and his limousine was "pounded on" and "pelted with trash" by the mob outside (which had grown to 5,000) as he drove away.

[27] The strike, which was marked by "threats of violence and diatribes laced with racism and anti-Semitism", ended when the New York legislature suspended the administrator and the board.

[25] Following Halpern's retirement in 1977, East Midwood hired as rabbi Alvin Kass, a graduate of Columbia College and the JTSA, with a Ph.D. in philosophy from New York University.

[28] As Brooklyn's changing demographics made non-Orthodox institutions less viable, East Midwood absorbed three other congregations, including the Jewish Communal Center of Flatbush,[13] where East Midwood had held its first annual meeting,[15] and, in 1978, Flatbush's Congregation Shaare Torah.

Born in Poland, he had escaped Europe after the outbreak of World War II, moving to Canada and then the United States.

There he graduated from Manhattan's Washington Irving High School, and in 1952 received his rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin.

He also convinced the NYPD Shomrim Society (the fraternal organization of Jewish members of the New York City Police Department) to admit David Durk.

Durk, along with the more famous Frank Serpico, had been the source of the allegations of police corruption that led to the formation of the Knapp Commission.

A graduate of Vassar College and the JTSA, he had previously served as rabbi of Battery Park Synagogue in Manhattan and Congregation Mount Sinai in Brooklyn.

[2] Like the synagogue, the day school also suffered from Brooklyn's changing (and increasingly Orthodox) demographics;[30][41] enrollment had dropped from 400 students to 99 by the early 21st century.

The written evidence consists of an entry in a souvenir journal commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the Flatbush Jewish Center, stating that Abramson drew East Midwood's plans.

[10] The NRHP nomination form speculates that Abramson drew the basic plans for the East Midwood Center, and that the Building Committee completed them, in order to save money.

[44] Famous congregational members have included Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was confirmed at East Midwood,[45] rather than having her bat mitzvah there, because (at the time) Conservative Judaism did not have bat mitzvah ceremonies for girls (a fact Ginsberg could not understand).

[46][47] When Ginsberg was 13 she also had essays published in the synagogue's bulletin about Stephen S. Wise, and on prejudice and world unity following the Holocaust.