Temple Beth Israel (Hebrew: בית ישראל) was a Jewish congregation and synagogue located at 905 College Avenue in Niagara Falls, New York, in the United States.

[9] From 2005 to 2007 the synagogue was repeatedly targeted by vandals; after some of these incidents a federal investigation was started and two people were arrested, convicted, and sentenced.

[3] Founded in Niagara Falls in 1898,[3][4] Temple Beth Israel formally incorporated in 1905, when it was granted a charter by the State of New York, and purchased land for $1,600 ($54,000 today) on Cedar Avenue.

In 1915 Beth Israel started providing Hebrew school classes,[14] and in 1916 hired its first full-time rabbi, Moses Abramson,[13] who served until 1918.

A founder of Niagara County Community College, Porrath was appointed Beth Israel's "Rabbi Emeritus" in 1968, and died in 1989.

[7][11] After Porrath, Beth Israel went through another series of short-tenured rabbis: Jacob Friedman (1936–1937), Herman Glatt (1938–1940), and Mordecai Waxman (1941–1942).

[3][1][2] That year Schorr asked to be released from his contract, and was replaced by Morris A. Cohen for 6 months, and then Samuel Porrath, who came out of retirement to assist.

[8][21] During the 1970s Niagara Falls had entered a long economic downturn: plants run by major employers closed, and the city's population dropped by over 40 percent.

[7] Jerome Kestenbaum joined as rabbi in 1981, and, feeling that the mortgage was a drain on the congregation, in 1982 he and synagogue president Samuel Wineburgh asked Jack A. Gellman to head a campaign to retire it.

[3] In 1992 swastikas and the words "white power" were found on synagogue's door, which was urinated on,[24] and in 1997 vandals started a fire outside the building.

Incidents occurred on a near-daily basis, and included urinating on the synagogue's doors and carving swastikas into them: a "skateboard club" named "DNA" had apparently claimed the Temple's property as its own "turf", and refused to leave.

A federal investigation involving a Joint Terrorism Task Force agent and local police was begun when the message "Kill the Jews" was duct-taped to the building's door on January 12, 2007.

[10] At the synagogue's annual "Friends of Temple Beth Israel" dinner it honored that year the police officers and attorneys who prosecuted the perpetrators, and honored the following year the parish council president of St. Teresa Catholic Church and the founders of the Niagara Falls Human Rights Commission for helping raise awareness of the crimes.