Meridian’s Jewish community built synagogues downtown in 1878 and 1906. In the 1960s, with a declining local congregation, members moved their place of worship to the northern suburbs. Here, using red and cream brick for walls, Risher set out a gable-roofed worship space flanked to the left by a flat-roofed education building raised on an earthen platform and to the right by a flat-roofed social hall and library. The gable roof is supported by large, laminated wooden beams received at the ground by steel buttresses. Narrow strips of wood attached to the underside of laminated wooden decking produce a visual tour de force, as the roof edge is only about three inches thick. This emphasis on thin members continues at the front of the building ensemble, where a flat-roofed steel walkway canopy on steel-tube columns remains in a modified form.
In 1968, after the synagogue’s leaders spoke publicly against Ku Klux Klan attacks on local churches with black congregations, Klan members bombed the education building. Severely damaged, it was later demolished, but pieces of salvaged glass were incorporated into the front window of the main building.