The first Reform synagogue in South Africa, Temple Israel opened in 1936 under the leadership of Rabbi M.C. Weiler. An Art Deco temple designed by architects Kallenbach, Kennedy & Furner, the building also houses the archives of Progressive Judaism. Equality between man and women was promoted, and in 1949 the sisterhood at Temple Israel founded the M.C. Weiler School in Alexandra, to counter the inferior “Bantu Education” offered by the apartheid state.