Temple B'nai Jeshurun was designed by the architectural firm of Davis and Wilson. The contractor for the building was Peter Hansen, who offered a bid of $51,164.84. On April 26, 1923, Rabbi Jacob Singer officially broke the ground at the building site. Those present at the ceremony included Gertrude Gugenheim, president of the Sisterhood; William Gold, president of the congregation; Roy Pepperberg, vice president; and Morris Weil, chairman of the building committee. Thirty years earlier, Morris Weil also served as chairman of the building committee when the congregation built the first Temple in Lincoln at 12th and D Streets.

The cornerstone of the South Street Temple was laid at the site on May 27, 1923. In preparation for that ceremony, the minutes of the Temple Board note, 'After much discussion, it was decided to put the cornerstone in the southeast comer of the building near the side entrance. Carved on the stone [will be] ‘The Jewish Temple 1884‑1923.’”

The Temple was completed and dedicated 17 months after the groundbreaking, on September 19, 1924. Speakers at the dedication ceremony included Rabbi Jacob Singer, although he had left the Lincoln Temple in 1923; Julian Morgenstern, president of the Union Hebrew College, Cincinnati; Rabbi Frederick Cohn, of the Congregation Israel, Omaha; and Rabbi Solomon Elihu Starrels, the rabbi of the South Street Temple at the time of the dedication.

An issue of the Lincoln Star from Friday, September 19, 1924, describes the new Temple:

'The edifice is of the Roman period with interior following both Oriental and Moorish influences. Perhaps the most outstanding piece in the entire synagogue is the carved walnut pulpit, the work of Keats W. Lorenz, a local artist. Back of the pulpit, and raised to a level of the top of the ark, is an arched choir box. In the center of this is a huge Austin organ, donated by the women of the Temple Sisterhood. . . . . Fifteen memorials, including a number of great, stained glass windows, each inscribed with the name of its donor, will be dedicated with the building tonight. From the comers of the auditorium rise four, richly tiled arches which hold the huge mosaic dome. In the rear of the main room is a balcony holding 50 seats. In the basement of the building are the Sunday school rooms, a stage, and a complete kitchen.'

Keats Lorenz, the carver of the walnut ark, is well known as the woodcarver of the mahogany doors of the State Capitol's East Legislative Chamber. The work he did for the South Street Temple was one of his first commissions. In Historic Places: the National Register for Nebraska, the architectural style of the Temple is described as a blend of 'Byzantine and Moorish design elements in its ornamentation and general massing.' According to this work, 'The South Street Temple exemplifies the early twentieth century eclectic architecture of temple building types.'

Rabbi Henry Karp also spoke of the eclectic nature of Temple architecture in an interview that he gave in 1981. He explained that, because the Jews were a wandering people for a great part of their history, they did not develop their own architectural prototype. Rabbi Karp said that Byzantine elements were commonly adopted for Jewish Temples.

Rabbi Karp suggested that one explanation for the popularity of this style may be that Jews have had a long tradition of not depicting people or animals in their houses of worship because of a ban against idolatry. Instead of depicting living creatures, Jews adopted the Islamic tradition of using mosaics and geometric motifs for ornamentation.