Among the founders of B'nai Jeshurun were the first Jewish settlers in Lincoln. Moses and Tillie (Ehrman) Oppenheimer came to Lincolnon October 4, 1868, from St. Joseph, Missouri. Their son, Joseph R., born on June 19, 1873, was the first Jewish child born in Lincoln. Moses' brother Isaac arrived in 1869 with his wife Rose and sons Jacob and Sol. Isaac and Moses were in the millinery (hat making) business. 

Other arrivals in the 1870s and 1880s included Leopold Barr, a jeweler; Aaron Katzenstein, in men's clothing; Isaac Friend, in general merchandise; and Julius Pepperberg, a cigar manufacturer. Maurice A. Newmark was born in New York and raised in St. Louis. He opperated a men's clothing store. Newmark was secretary and later president of B'nai Jeshurun and was its first historian. His papers are the source of much of what is known of the Temple's beginnings.¹

Louis Poska was born in Suvalk, Poland, and arrived in Lincolnin 1869. He owned a livery stable and was the first Jewish man to be married in Lincoln. His brother Charles arrived in 1874. David Nefsky arrived in 1881 and returned to live in 1887. Born in Russia, Nefsky first came to Lincoln because he knew Louis Poska. David Nefsky was a founding member of Tifereth Israel, originally an Orthodox synagogue. He joined the Temple in the 1890s to provide his children with a religious education. He was the grandfather of the late Leon Nefsky and the great-grandfather of Robert Nefsky, a current Temple member..

¹The above information comes from an unsigned history in the Templefiles, dated 1926.