The first Jewish Lexingtonian on record was a member of the Philadelphia Gratz family who came in the 1830s to take care of family interests in the Bluegrass area and ended up marrying one of Henry Clay’s daughters. Rabbi Stephen Wise, who was called to officiate at his funeral, commented in his memoirs that this was the first funeral he attended where the only Jewish people were himself and the deceased.

     By the end of the 19th century several Jewish merchants offered their wares on Main and Maxwell streets. Most of them were German Jews. The first Jewish organization in the Bluegrass region was founded in 1904, a Reform congregation which was named “Adath Israel Temple” which in 1915 moved to its present location on North Ashland Avenue off Main Street.

     A small but steady stream of Jews continued to come to Lexington, many of them of Eastern European origin, and by 1914 they established a Conservative congregation and named it “Ohavay Zion Synagogue.” The congregation functioned in members’ homes until they bought the original building of the Maxwell Presbyterian Church on Maxwell Street. The congregation remained there until 1976 when they moved to their current location at Edgewater Court, off Alumni Drive in the south part of town. The old Synagogue building on Maxwell Street is part of the Historical Registry and currently houses a popular Italian restaurant.

     In 1976, a group of members of Ohavay Zion Synagogue established a new group, known as “The Lexington Havurah” which retained its affiliation with the Conservative Movement while adopting the style and organization prevalent in the Havurah Movement. This congregation exists to this day gathering once a month and for Jewish holidays. The Havurah values a participatory service in which all members contribute and share responsibilities.

     In 1908, the local Jewish community organized itself to raise money for the Jewish community in “Eretz Israel,” then under Turkish control. It was the beginning of the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) campaign in Lexington. For many years, the only goal of the campaign was raising money for Israel. The UJA published the first Jewish newspaper, called “Hacoach”, which lasted a short time. In 1966, a local volunteer, Sue Friedman, organized a group of local mothers to start a Jewish Summer Day Camp which they named “Camp Shalom” and continues even today as one of the centerpieces of the local community. The UJA group reorganized itself and a new “Board of Allocations” was created to distribute the money raised between Israel and the Camp. The UJA committee also started publishing a new newspaper, “Shalom”, which is still distributed once a month 10 times annually.

      In 1976, a decision was made to merge the operations of the UJA Campaign and the Board of Allocations as well as Camp Shalom and the newspaper under one organization, the Central Kentucky Jewish Association, which changed its name a year later to Central Kentucky Jewish Federation to reflect its membership in the Federation Movement. The Federation hired its first professional Director in 1979. The Federation offices were first located on Waller Avenue in a basement, and they moved to the Romany Road location in 1991. In 2002 the office was moved to its current location on Chinoe Road. While the Federation had, since its very founding, a Social Service Committee, it was not until 1995 that it hired its first Social Worker. This individual was hired to tend to the needs of the Russian families being resettled in Lexington. Later the name of the Social Services Committee was changed to Jewish Family Services.

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