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Congregation Beth Elohim is a Reform congregation located at 274 Garfield Place and Eighth Avenue, in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Founded in 1861 as a more liberal breakaway from Congregation Baith Israel, in its first 65 years it attempted four mergers with other congregations, including three with Baith Israel, all of which failed. The congregation completed its current Classical Revival synagogue building in 1910 and its "Jewish Deco" (Romanesque Revival and Art Deco) Temple House in 1929. The congregation went through difficult times during the Great Depression, and the bank almost foreclosed on its buildings in 1946. Membership dropped significantly in the 1930s because of the Depression, and again in the 1970s as a result of demographic shifts. Programs for young children helped draw Jewish families back into the neighborhood and revitalize the membership. By 2006 Beth Elohim had over 1000 members, and, as of 2008^[update], it was the largest Reform congregation in Brooklyn, the "oldest Brooklyn congregation that continues to function under its corporate name", and its pulpit was the oldest in continuous use in any Brooklyn synagogue. (more...)

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November 18: Independence Day in Latvia (1918); National Day in Oman (1940)

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• 1905 – Prince Carl of Denmark became Haakon VII, the first King of Norway after the personal union between Sweden and Norway was dissolved.
• 1978 – Jim Jones led more than 900 members of the Peoples Temple to mass murder/suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, hours after some of its members assassinated U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan (pictured).
• 1991 – Croatian War of Independence: Republic of Serbian Krajina forces captured the Croatian city of Vukovar, ending an 87-day siege.

• More events: November 17 – November 18 – November 19

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