Temple Sinai was founded in June of 1979 by nine families seeking to establish an organized Jewish presence in West Houston. Our founding Rabbi, Abraham Shaw, commuted from Austin several times a month to lead services and officiate at numerous B’nai Mitzvot.  The education of our children was a priority, so a professional Religious School director was hired from the beginning. Temple Sinai started in a building at 783 Country Place Drive which was subleased from the West Houston branch of the Jewish Community Center. In June of 1982, we purchased the building and the JCC moved on to other quarters.

Temple Sinai continued to grow and in August 1984 we were joined by Rabbi Howard Rabinowitz. As the congregation grew, the Temple building also evolved. Starting with a formal sanctuary and continuing with a classroom renovation, we met our needs with creative use of space.  In our early years, we rented out space to a series of day care centers as a way to defray the costs of the building.  It was a significant turning point when, in the late 1990s, we attained a sufficient membership base to no longer need the outside income.  The growing membership meant, however, that we needed to run multiple sessions in our religious school. 

As Temple Sinai entered its twentieth year, we continued to face change head-on. We completed the payments on the Country Place building and became debt-free. At the same time, we realized that the building that had met the needs of a 35-family temple could not continue to meet the needs of our growing congregation. In the fall of 1998, we embarked on a comprehensive long-range planning effort directed at finding a larger facility to meet our needs for many years to come.  At about the same time, Rabbi Rabinowitz, of blessed memory, retired and we hired our first full time clergy, Rabbi Todd Thalblum.