Synagogues and Churches in North Lawndale

North Lawndale was the third largest Jewish community in the world during the first half of the last century. To serve this robust community's spiritual needs, there were over 70 synagogues. These synagogues were places of refuge for Jews from eastern European communities, large and small, that were now calling North Lawndale home. The Jewish community began a slow, then rapid move to Chicago's expanding northern suburbs in the 1940s and 1950s. African Americans began to replace Jews in the community. The built environment remained largely intact, and most of the synagogues began to be used as African-American Christian churches.