In 1850, twelve German immigrant families founded Michigan’s oldest Jewish organization, the Beth El Society, at the Detroit home of Isaac and Sarah Cozens. Beth El was first led by Orthodox Rabbi Samuel Marcus. During the 1850s, as social and political turmoil gripped the nation, Beth El moved away from strict Orthodox doctrine by adopting new bylaws in 1856 and embracing Reform Judaism. These changes allowed men and women to sit together during services and sing together in choirs, and rabbis taught services in English rather than in German. In 1873, Beth El helped charter the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, which united Reform synagogues across the nation. Organized in Detroit in 1850, the Beth El Society met in homes and storefronts before purchasing its first house of worship in 1861. Beth El member Albert Kahn designed two former synagogues for the congregation, built in Detroit in 1903 and 1922. Built in 1973 in Bloomfield Hills to accommodate members who had moved to the suburbs, Temple Beth El was designed by Minoru Yamasaki, who also designed New York City’s World Trade Center. He conceived the soaring temple to represent the meeting tents of the ancient Israelites, and its two hundred panels, formed by steel cables dissecting the concrete walls, symbolize the number of times per day Jews are to thank God.