National Council of Young Israel
Early in the 20th century, American Jews were striving primarily for social and economic advancement, often leaving their religious observances behind.
[3][4] At the same time, the Reform movement had been expanding rapidly for about 40 years, and with its relaxed religious codes, secularly-educated leadership, and English orientation, attracted an increasing number of young people away from the folds of Orthodoxy.
In 1911, Max Grablowsky, Joshua Horowitz and Benjamin Koenigsberg determined to organize a way to present an orthodox alternative to young people.
After consulting with Judah Magnes, the enlarged group, which was calling itself the Hebrew Circle, renamed itself Young Israel.
Benjamin Koenigsberg, the first Orthodox Jewish American attorney[5] loaned his law office to the organization.
The changes included singing many parts of the prayer service, and the distribution of worship honors equally, where they had traditionally gone to established, wealthy congregants who could pay for them.
They reached a truce in 1918 and agreed to join forces in more than just name, and created a single Young Israel organization, led by Irving Bunim, who would be president of NCYI for many years.
The merger created two years before had also caused the Conservatives to start trying to make changes in the Synagogue arm, which had been exclusively Orthodox.
[12] By 1925, Young Israel was extending into social services, and formed a support agency for Sabbath-observant employment that included job placement and vocational training.
When NCYI sought to sell the building in 2002, the synagogue sued for breach of their long-standing arrangement, as the sale would require their eviction.
Eventually, a deal was made involving two other parties, the building sold, and NCYI moved its small staff to leased office space in lower Manhattan.
[13][16][17] The organization had been subject to an investigation by then-New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's Charities Bureau.
According to The Forward: "New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, renowned for his jousts with the titans of corporate America, recently saw his own office tied in knots and thrown into turmoil during a three-year investigation into a small Orthodox synagogue organization.
[21] NCYI serves as the national coordinating agency for nearly 150 Orthodox congregations of nearly 25,000 member families throughout the United States and Canada.
[4] It is a grassroots organization administrated on the congregational model, taking its direction from local and national lay leadership as well as rabbis and professional staff.
[22] In recent decades, the Orthodox world has seen an increase in women's involvement in synagogue services, except for Haredi institutions.
On advice of its rabbinical board, to help stanch the trend, NCYI implemented the Rambam's requirement[23] that no women or converts to Judaism could serve as President of any of its synagogues.
[30] Intercollegiates published:[31] A 2018 statement issued by the head of a major internal committee regarding juggling of political alignments in the administration of Israel's Prime Minister led, after various Tweets and press releases, to the breakaway of an Atlanta-based branch that had joined NCYI in 1994.
[43] It was founded by Samuel Feuerstein, whose son Aaron Mordechai donated $1,000,000 to help it rebuild after a major fire.
[44] In 1945, when NCYI bought its headquarters building on West 16th Street, it also fostered the development of new branch synagogue on site, The Young Israel of Fifth Avenue.
As of 2013, it does not have its own quarters, and other area synagogues host prayer services that 16th Street members attend.
This was one of the earliest branches, and the affiliate that then-president Irving Bunim chose as the leader, in the 1930s, for instituting rabbinic leadership of Young Israel synagogues.
