History of the WRJC

Our community’s roots lie in the early 1880s, when Jewish immigrants from Germany settled the Wood River Valley as miners, merchants, sheep ranchers, and cowboys. They built a thriving community, holding the region’s first Yom Kippur services in 1884 and helping establish the towns of Ketchum, Hailey, and Bellevue. Friedman Memorial Airport pays tribute to that history by commemorating Simon M. Friedman, a pioneering Jewish merchant who served as Hailey’s first mayor.

A century later, in 1983, the Wood River Jewish Community was established. Our congregation’s founders were skiers and outdoors enthusiasts, attracted to this corner of Idaho by the beauty of its natural surroundings.  They occasionally called our congregation “Temple Beth Baldy” in an homage to Bald Mountain.

We worshipped at the Presbyterian Church of the Bigwood from 1983 to 2002 and at St. Thomas Episcopal Church from 2002 to 2023 thanks to the generosity of our neighbors. During that time, our congregation grew from a few families to a few hundred.

Major milestones included acquiring our first Torah (which was rescued from Prague after the Holocaust) in 1989; hiring Rabbi Laura Rappaport, our first part-time clergy, in 1996; hiring Rabbi Martin Levy, our first full-time clergy, in 2002; and, over the years, hosting Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel and many other Jewish leaders for educational and spiritual programs. Rabbis Sheila Goloboy, Barney Brickner, James Mirel, and Robbi Sherwin have also led and built our community.

In 2023, the WRJC entered a new era by establishing a home of our own: the Lewis Family Center in Elkhorn. Our synagogue, only the fourth ever built in Idaho, is a former grocery store that was extensively remodeled to meet our spiritual and communal needs. Under the leadership of Rabbi Sam Klein, who joined us in 2024 from Temple Israel in Columbus, Ohio, we celebrate a beautiful present and look forward to a very bright future.

For more information about our history, see this lecture at the Community Library and the historical exhibit in our L’Dor V’Dor Room at the Lewis Family Center.