Many of our historical documents have been lost, but we know that the first German Jews began coming to Tuscaloosa in the 1850s. For the next hundred years, most Jews in Tuscaloosa maintained businesses such as cotton brokering, dry goods, and clothing, and the paper business. apparently, families gathered for worship in various homes and and perhaps rented quarters until buying a lot at 2624 Broad Street (now University Boulevard) in Tuscaloosa's "Original City." The deed to that land is dated ugust 24, 2912, and transfers the property to "I. Green, L. Rosenfeld, and a. Holczstein as trustees of Temple Emanu-El." By the fall of 1912 the first Temple Emanu-El building that we know of was in use, and had an active "Sabbath School" whose superintendent was Ua law student Herbert U. Feibelman (who became a prominent lawyer in Miami and was a founder of Miami's Temple Israel). Our congregation thrived through the coming decades; by 1958 the original temple building was too small and the congregation purchased a former Methodist church on 10th Street (now Bryant Drive). t that point too, a small conservative congregation agreed to merge with Emnanu-El. By 1969, the 10th Street building had also become too small. On pril 16, 1969, trustees Harry Cohen, Gordon Rosen, Bernard Ward, Roy Block, Morris (Munny) Sokol, Sam Pizitz, Dave Rosenfeld, Stan Bloom, and Jake Temerson formally incorporated Emanu-El for the first time in a move to purchase a large lot on the southeast end of Tuscaloosa. By 1971, a new building on Skyland Boulevard was dedicated. It remained the Temple's home until January 2007, when we sold it to the alabama School for the Deaf and Blind. In 2007, Emanu-El was invited by President Witt of the University of alabama to locate on campus as the 'adult' half of a campus Jewish center. We will be sharing a block of University land with a new Hillel building, the 'student' half of the center. Glad to be back downtown, we have in a sense come full circle from our origins in the Original City. --anna jacobs singer, 1st vice president, March 2008.