Fernbach at 43rd Street and 5th Avenue after raising about $650,000. The congregation hired its first English speaking rabbi, Gustav Gottheil, in 1873, from Manchester, England. In 1888, Joseph Silverman became the first American-born rabbi to officiate at the Temple. He was a member of the second class to graduate from Hebrew Union College. The 1870s and 1880s witnessed further departures from traditional ritual. Men could now pray without wearing kippot to cover their heads. Bar mitzvah ceremonies were no longer held. The Union Prayer Book was adopted in 1895. Felix Adler, the founder of the Ethical Culture movement, came to New York as a child when his father, Samuel L. Adler, took over as the rabbi of Temple Emanu-El, an appointment that placed him among the most influential figures in Reform Judaism. In 1924, Lazare Saminsky became music director of the Temple, and made it a center of Jewish music. He also composed and commissioned music for the Temple services. 1926–present In January 1926, the existing synagogue (built in 1868), was sold to the developer Benjamin Winter Sr. for $6,500,000 who then sold it to Joseph Durst in December 1926 for $7,000,000. In 1927, Durst demolished the building to make room for commercial development. Emanu-El merged with Temple Beth-El in New York, New York on April 11, 1927, and both are considered co-equal parents of the current Emanu-El. The new synagogue was built in 1928-1930. By the 1930s, Emanu-El began to absorb large numbers of Jews whose families had arrived in poverty from Eastern Europe and brought with them their Yiddish language and devoutly Orthodox religious heritage. In contrast, Emanu-El was dominated by affluent German-speaking Jews whose liberal approaches to Judaism originated in Western Europe, where civic emancipation had enticed Jews to discard many of their ethnoreligious customs and embrace the lifestyles of their neighbors. For the descendants of Eastern European immigrants, joining Temple Emanu-El often signified their upward mobility and progress in assimilating into American society. However, the intake of these new congregants also helped to slow or halt, if not force a limited retreat from, the 'rejectionist' attitude which 'classical' Reform had espoused towards traditional ritual. From 1934 to 1947, Dr. Samuel H. Goldenson (1878–1962) was the senior rabbi of Temple Emanu-El. He was president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis from 1933 to 1935. In 1973, David M. Posner joined the rabbinical staff. Known for