the Washington Hebrew Congregation helped ease wartime suffering. During the war, the women of the Washington Hebrew Congregation raised money for the U.S. Sanitary Commission, which administered wartime relief to soldiers and their families. The congregation’s visiting nursing corps ministered to injured Jewish soldiers. Unclaimed bodies of Jewish war dead were buried in the congregation’s cemetery. Growth and expansion From 1897 to 1954, the congregation met at 816 Eighth Street NW, in a building designed by Washington architects Louis F. Stutz and Frank W. Pease. The cornerstone of this building was laid on September 16, 1897, by President William McKinley. This building was sold to New Hope Baptist Church (later Greater New Hope Baptist Church) in March 1954. Initially, men and women sat separately, with women in the gallery and men on the main floor. Traditional practices soon gave way to religious reforms, including the use of German and English during services. When organ music was added to worship services in 1869, some members left to form an Orthodox congregation. WHC continued to thrive, however, and by 1897, built a larger temple on the same site to serve the needs of our growing community. President William McKinley laid the cornerstone, and more than 3,000 people lined the streets to witness the event. By 1905, the First Washington Hebrew Congregation was the only Reform congregation in the District of Columbia, with a membership of 350, and a religious school attended by 200 children. Adas Israel Congregation, with Isaac Stampel as hazzan, was founded in 1869 by 69 members of the Washington Hebrew Congregation who objected to the Reform tendencies of the old congregation. In 1952, President Harry S. Truman laid the cornerstone of the congregation's current home on Macomb Street NW, which was dedicated on May 6, 1955, by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. By the 1970s, in order to meet the needs of a growing congregation and as members moved out of the District to the suburbs, an additional facility was built. The Julia Bindeman Suburban Center in Potomac, Maryland opened in 1978. Civil Rights activities In the summer of 1966, a group of young Jewish activists urged the synagogue's rabbi, Rabbi Norman Gerstenfeld, to denounce a white Jewish landlord named Allie Freed for engaging in racist housing practices against African-Americans. After Rabbi Gerstenfeld refused to denounce Freed, Jewish members of ACCESS (Action Coordinating Committee to End Segregation in the Suburbs)