We're located in Cliffside Park, N.J., just a couple of miles south of the GW Bridge. Our members come from all over Bergen County, although the majority live in Cliffside Park and the surrounding communities of Edgewater, Englewood, Fairview, Fort Lee and North Bergen.

We’re an egalitarian Conservative synagogue. Women are counted as part of the minyan and otherwise are encouraged to fully participate in all religious services, as well as all other aspects of synagogue life.

In the mid-1920s, the members of the Cliffside Park Jewish community banded together to form Congregation Sons of Israel. The new synagogue conducted services and held meetings in a private home on Jersey Avenue, before moving into its own building on Edgewater Road.

That building, however, would eventually prove inadequate for the community’s needs. In November 1956, therefore, the now-renamed Temple Israel Community Center broke ground at 207 Edgewater Road (one block east of its location at the time) for its present building, which it has occupied since early 1958.

TICC has always been a “small” congregation, fluctuating between 110 and 125 membership units. This was the intention of its founders, who wanted to create an “intimate” synagogue community, in contrast to the trend towards larger, more impersonal environments. The main advantages of the larger congregations were twofold: They provided the critical mass of members necessary to allow for varied programs and services; and they were likelier to be more financially secure. Loss of intimacy — the warmth and sense of community — was the price to pay for those advantages. It was a price the founders of TICC were unwilling to pay.