People

The Buffalo region has been home to a wide range of individuals associated with local Jewish communities and Jewish networks from the 1820s through to the contemporary period as immigrants, citizens, residents and locals.

Institutions

Buffalo Jews have a rich history of forming both formal and informal institutions for religious, educational, political and social needs. From synagogues to organizations, and from coordinating agencies to groups and clubs, Jewish Buffalonians have seen a changing range of institutions supported by group endeavors and community philanthropy.

Neighborhoods

In living memory, the East Side and North Buffalo stand out as physically connected and interwoven religious and commercial centers of Jewish living. In contrast to these specific areas are the mini hubs identified with Jewish living and connected to a more dispersed idea of neighborhood. Separately, suburbia with its significant geographic spread, has redefined how a series of Jewish spaces come together with a mix of hubs, focal points and networks.

Themes

Some nice intro blah blah

Exhibitions

Special exhibitions, through a focus on particular individuals and subjects, delves into the personal stories that have animated Jewish lives. Each digital exploration reflects on the interplay between place, identities and changing times and the way in which American, Jewish and Buffalo historical experiences are deeply interwoven.

Resources

Materials that document Jewish Buffalo in all its diversity are found in books, articles, archives and museums, many of which are available locally or online. This section highlights some of these sources and will be updated regularly.

Ohr Temimim expansion, 2014

Organizations  /  Ohr Temimim

Ohr Temimim is a Chabad affiliated day school for children from nursery through 8th grade that grew out of a merger of the Jewish Heritage Day School and Torah Temimah Day School in 2008. In 2014, the school underwent a major expansion of its site in Amherst, NY.

Overview

Ohr Temimim is a Chabad affiliated day school that provides a dual curriculum education in secular and Judaic studies for children from nursery through eighth grade. Ohr Temimim formed out of a merger in 2008 of the Jewish Heritage Day School (JHDS) and Torah Temimah Day School. 

The Torah Temimah Day School of Buffalo has a history that dates back to the 1970s, and was created soon after a Chabad House was established in Buffalo by Chabad shlichim, Rabbi Noson Gurary and Miriam Gurary. Torah Temimah Day School of Buffalo initially met in their home and then at changing locations around Buffalo.

The Jewish Heritage Day School was founded in 1994. It gained a Provisional Charter from New York State Board of Regents in 1995 and was granted an Absolute Charter in 2000. The Jewish Heritage Day School was initially based in offices within the Jewish Community Center in Getzville, NY, but in November 2001 it relocated into its own building in a former insurance office at 411 John James Audubon Parkway, Amherst, NY 14228. During the late 1990s, the JHDS was affiliated with the Torah U’Mesorah Jewish Day School network. In the 2000s, it affiliated with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement and its youth wing, Tzivos Hashem founded in 1980 by the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Rabbi Shmuel Shanowitz has served as Principal to JHDS and Ohr Tmimim since 1994.

Ohr Temimim underwent a major expansion in mid 2013 adding a further 5,000 square feet to its premises in order to add extra classrooms to accommodate an additional 50 students . The new building was dedicated in 2014 by the Shuman and Gellman families.

Chabad Links

Chabad-Lubavitch is a movement within Orthodoxy. Chabad is an acronym of three words: Chochmah (Wisdom), Binah (Understanding), and Da’at (knowledge). Lubavitch is the name of the small town in the county of Mohilev (Imperial Russia) that served as the center of the Chabad Chassidism. The origins of modern Chabad-Lubavitch organization in the United States are traced to the early 1940’s when the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn (1880-1950), appointed his son-in-law and later successor, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn (1902-1994), to head the newly-founded educational and social service arms of the movement. It’s headquarters are located at 770 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY. As of 2020 there are over 3500 Chabad linked institutions around the world.

Location

Ohr Temimim Website

Articles

Gallery

Ohr Temimim School

Ohr Temimim School, photograph created by Izon Productions-Don Dannecker, 2013. Courtesy of the Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies.

Ohr Temimim School

Ohr Temimim expansion, 2014

Ohr Temimim expansion, 2014

Ohr Temimim expansion: The Shuman and Gellman Families Educational Campus, 2014. Photograph created by Rabbi Shmuel Shanowitz. Courtesy of Rabbi Shmuel Shanowitz.

Discover More Collections

Resources in the University Archives, University at Buffalo

Thank You

Our thanks to Rabbi Shanowitz for images of the expanded campus and the Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies for permission to reproduce the image of Ohr Temimim taken in 2013 (before its expansion) as part of a documentation project carried out by the Jewish Buffalo Archives Project.