Our History

In 1983, a group of five families got together and started a Reform Jewish congregation which they named the Sunrise Jewish Congregation with Allen Kane as the first president. The first service was held on June 24th, 1983 at the home of Ralph and Ceil Davie in Fair Oaks. 42 people attended that first service. In the early years, Friday night services were held twice a month at members´ homes.

For the next few years, services rotated among homes, and eventually moved to different locations, including a few churches, a Holiday Inn, the Maidau Center in Roseville and eventually found a relatively long-term store-front home next to the "donut shop." Initially, services were conducted by Temple members and in 1985 we had our first Rabbi (student Rabbi David Cohen). There followed a series of other student Rabbis including R. Wechsler, R. Bob Davis, R. Andy Teperson and R. Kenny Weiss. In 1991, we hired Rabbi Schwab as our first part time Rabbi. In 2001, Rabbi Michael Remson took over as interim Rabbi, followed by R. Yossi Liebowitz and Rabbi Oblath. In 2004, Rabbi Sheryl Nosan-Blank became our Rabbi and served for the next five years. In July 2009, Rabbi Alan Rabishaw became the Rabbi for Temple Or Rishon.

During these past 30 years we have celebrated two wonderful events: In 2000, we were very proud to open our current Temple site at 7755 Hazel Avenue in Orangevale. Then, in 2004, we added to our Temple home our Hebrew School classrooms on-site, enabling us to provide a wonderful and comprehensive Hebrew and Religious school on our campus.