A place where you feel the warmth of a Jewish community.
A place of challenging prayer and heart-opening song.
A place of Jewish ideas, concepts, theology, and philosophy.
A place where you can celebrate Shabbat and Jewish Holidays.
A place where you can celebrate the major events in your life with a community ready to stand with you and support you as you face life's challenges.
A place where your children can feel at home with words, songs, prayers, holidays and rituals that can add layers of Jewish meaning to their lives...and to yours

Rabbi Matt Friedman has been our rabbi since since September 2006. We only enjoy what he has to offer during the High Holidays and on about nine once-a-month Shabbat weekends since he lives in the Sacramento area. That's a 140 mile shlep one way.
    Rabbi Friedman received an MAHL and Rabbinical Ordination from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, OH. He has served congregations in Arkansas, Missouri and California. He is active in a wide variety of Jewish communal activities which currently include the Jewish-Catholic Leadership Dialogue, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Rabbinical Association of Sacramento.

    On 30 June 2008, we had 60 membership units comprised of 81 adults and 48 children. Nearly two-thirds of the adults were women. Nearly 40% of our membership units have ony one employed adult, 31% have two employed adults, and 27%, which includes retired members, have no employed adults. Our members come from diverse religious upbringing: 27% were raised in the Reform tradition, 20% as Conservative, 5% as Orthodox, and the balance equally split between converts, those raised in a secular environment, and those who are not Jewish. In fact, 22% of our couples are Jewish-nonJewish relationships.
    Our five membership units reflect the diversity of today's definitions of family. They include units comprised of one or two adult members and among them units with no children or with children. Couples with one or more children at home, both adults members, account for 13 units. Single adults with no children account for 12, couples with no children, only one member, account for 11. Couples with no children, both members, and couples with children, only one member, each account for 6.

    A Jewish presence in Shasta County was first evident in the 1800s through the merchants that settled here during the Gold Rush Era. They formed the Jewish Benevolent Society in order to have consecrated ground for burials. Subsequently, the Shasta County Supervisors deeded land to them in 1857 to establish a cemetery. That land, located on both sides of Highway 299 west of Old Shasta, now belongs to Temple Beth Israel. A State Historical Marker at the site identifies an early Jewish baby’s grave, that of Charles Brownstein, infant son of George and Helena Brownstein, who died 14 Dec 1864.
    Temple Beth Israel began with a luncheon of interested women in Shingletown. Their enthusiasm sparked a meeting of other families who organized the Redding Jewish Community Center on 10 November 1976. On 25 April 1980, the Center received a charter as Congregation Beth Israel from the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now the U nion of R eform J udaism).
    In our early days, we met and prayed in many places. In 1981, we began a 15-year relation with Pilgrim Congregational Church as our center of congregational life. In December 1996, we acquired our current building and became Temple Beth Israel of Redding.