As of 2011[update], the congregation claimed to represent the diversity of the West Harlem community,[2] including students from Columbia University, Barnard College, and the Jewish Theological Seminary.

The congregation formed from the mostly Ashkenazic Jewish population of Russian and Polish immigrants to New York during the 1880s who had made their way up to Central Harlem, then migrated to blocks west.

After the division of Poland between Germany and USSR, Rabbi Kret was arrested by the Soviet authorities while attempting to bring his students to relative safety in Lithuania.

By the time most of these had moved away, in the 1970s and 1980s, Rabbi Kret had become a mashgiach (kosher food supervisor) in the nearby Barnard College dining hall as well as a Talmud tutor at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America students.

As such Rabbi Kret had a deep influence on many Columbia University, Barnard College and Jewish Theological Seminary students until he retired from the Synagogue in November 1997.