Bolton Street Synagogue was founded in 1986 in the Bolton Hill district of Baltimore and is an unaffiliated synagogue whose members come from a variety of backgrounds creating a unique place of worship.

Outgrowing our old home, we moved into a beautiful new location in the Roland Park neighborhood of Baltimore City.  It was dedicated on Sunday, December 7^th, 2003. 

We began with about 30 families and continue to be relatively small and inclusive with over 200 family units now.

As a reminder of where we came from and as a symbol of our past history, light from the stained glass window including the Ten Commandments that was housed in our old synagogue is in our new lobby and casts a spectrum of colors down upon it. 

The stained glass window in the lobby was designed by Walter Schwarz, one of our founding members, who has since passed away.  At the beginning of the Nazi era, Mr. Schwarz lived through Kristallnacht or “The Night of Broken Glass.”  It was on this night in November 1938 that the glass windows in almost every German synagogue and in most Jewish owned businesses were shattered.  Following this experience, Mr. Schwarz swore that if he should escape Nazi German, he would one day learn to create and build with glass.  The star serves as a memorial to the six million Jews who perished in the flames of the Holocaust.

As a synagogue, we have a deep awareness and understanding of Judaism that reaches back over 5,000 years.  At the same time and as a relatively young shul, we cherish our own vibrant roots.

Our Siddur

In many ways our prayer book is reflective of our synagogue. We use Siddur Eit Ratzon (www.newsiddur.org) a traditional prayer book designed for those who seek spirituality and meaning beyond what they have found in conventional prayer books.

• It refers to God using contemporary English terms that are relevant to our experience, and addresses God primarily in the second person, so that the prayers are more personal as well as gender-neutral.
• It includes guideposts for beginners and for those seeking to broaden their prayer experience
• It provides a line-by-line transliteration of the entire Hebrew text to help you participate more fully in the service
• It provides a transliteration that speaks to the modern reader and that can readily be used for “davening”.

The way it was chosen is also representative of our egalitarian approach. After a review of several siddurs, The Religious Culture Committee, in conjunction with our Rabbi and several ruach-filled Friday night services, selected it. We believe it best reflects who we are and we invite you to come in and see for yourself one Friday night.

Leadership
Rabbi: Jonathan Panitz - Rabbi@boltonstreet.org
President: Doug Carrey-Beaver - president@boltonstreet.org
Religious School Principal: Michael Green - principal@boltonstreet.org
Cantor: Alan Rubinstein - cantor@boltonstreet.org
Administrator: Debbie Barnes - dbarnes@boltonstreet.org
Executive Committee

Our Library
The Bolton Street Library provides access for congregation members to general Judaica and reference works as well as an overview of Jewish literature, philosophy, and history.  The Library, dedicated in 2009 to the late Roger Dalsheimer, serves as a lending library for members of the congregation, with accessibility in the near future to the Library’s computerized library collection of over 2,000 books through the Library’s resource computer and the internet.