On a grassy rise in rural Newtown, Pa., Trenton’s historic Congregation Brothers of Israel has found a new home.

The 123-year-old Conservative congregation, long a fixture on Greenwood Avenue in Trenton, purchased the property outright in November for $1.3 million.

Plans are under way to move into the site’s 7,900-square-foot facility — formerly the home of the Newtown Assembly of God — sometime in mid-January, according to Scott Galinsky of Yardley, immediate past president of Brothers of Israel and one of the driving forces for the move.

“I feel that we’re making an appropriate move for the congregation to keep our synagogue family together and to move to a location where we’ll be able to attract new members for the future,” Galinsky said as he sat in the sanctuary of the building that would soon be dedicated as a synagogue.

With him were Rabbi Howard Hersch, religious leader of the congregation, and Andrea Kornblum of Yardley, a former congregational president who is coordinating the transition committee for the move.

“We believe we’ve found a wonderful location,” Galinsky said, “and we look forward to welcoming new members to share our joy with us.”

With Har Sinai Hebrew Congregation, Trenton’s other remaining historic congregation, planning to move from its stately temple on Bellevue Avenue to interim quarters outside the city by the first week in January, Brothers of Israel’s move will mark the end of an era of the Jewish community in Trenton.

Asked to reflect on that fact, Hersch said, “I believe that synagogue is community, and the Jewish community that was centered in the city of Trenton is no longer physically there. The synagogue made a very conscious and courageous decision to go to the new center of Jewish community and to plant our roots where the people are.

“We are very pleased to build for the future by coming to the center of Jewish community life,” the rabbi said, “and we will take our memories, our history, and our traditions with us. As we have learned, the traditions of our ancestors are in our hands. We take those traditions with us as we build for the future.”

Hersch noted that even though the congregation is moving, it is still maintaining a presence in Trenton through its founding membership on the board of the Trent Center senior housing facilities on the Greenwood Avenue campus. And no one will be left behind, he said. Brothers of Israel plans to run a shuttle from Trenton to Newtown so that elderly members and Jewish residents of Trent House can attend Shabbat and holiday services at the new synagogue in Newtown.

The 230-family congregation became aware of the 3.5-acre property on Washington Crossing Road in Newtown after plans to purchase a 14-acre wooded tract in Langhorne fell through, Hersch said.

“In Yiddish, they say, when a door closes, another one opens,” he said. “When the door closed on Langhorne, we were all depressed and concerned. Then, all of a sudden, like a miracle, this door opened and provided us with this exciting building — a place to start right off with school and services. So a new door opened, and a new beginning for us.”

The new location, with easy access to Interstate Route 95, is very advantageous to congregational members, of which about two-thirds live in Pennsylvania and one-third live in New Jersey, according to Galinsky. He said that after repainting and refurbishing the interior of the building and repaving the parking lot, the congregation expects to be in business in Newtown by the end of January.

“It was beneficial to us because we could keep our family together — our New Jersey members and our Pennsylvania members,” he said. “It was a house of worship. It had the location for us. And it had the necessary zoning in place. This will put us [in operation] very quickly.”

In addition to the large sanctuary, the two-story building includes a spacious lobby, seven classrooms for the congregation’s 75 schoolchildren, a small kitchen, a business office, a library alcove, and offices for Hersch and his wife, Joan, who is educational director of the congregation. The rabbi said he plans to hang one mezuza immediately, in a private ceremony, and another during a public dedication ceremony in the spring. A new ark is being constructed to house the congregation’s 14 Torah scrolls. The congregation’s bronze ark doors from the sanctuary in Trenton, with their sweeping Hebrew letters spelling out “Sh’ma Yisrael” in Hebrew, will grace the new ark in Newtown.

The congregation will also be bringing to the new synagogue its stained glass windows, memorial plaques, and Tree of Life wall display, Kornblum said.

“I’m a member approaching 22 years now, and I have a belief that a synagogue is not just location, but the members who are our family,” she said. “We are moving together as a family to a location that will bring us a better future.

“Another wonderful thing about being here is that we’ll attract new members,” Kornblum added. She noted that there are two new housing developments directly across from the property, and many more in the surrounding communities of Wrightstown, Upper Makefield, Yardley, Langhorne, Washington Crossing, New Hope, Holland, and Richboro.

“We believe, based on the information we’ve been given, that there are a significant number of Jewish families within a five-mile radius of the property,” she said. “We’re almost at the epicenter.”

Research shows that some 80 percent of those Jewish families in Lower Bucks County are unaffiliated, Hersch said. “The area is still quite rural, and we see future development and growth in this location,” he said. “So we are planning for the future, and we hope to become an integral part of the community and to grow with it. I have great hopes for the future of the synagogue.”

Victor Giuffre of Yardley, president of Brothers of Israel, shares those hopes about the Newtown site.

“I’m very, very excited about what this new move means to us from a perspective of future growth and membership,” Giuffre said in a separate interview. “We can maintain our haimishe family.”

When Brothers of Israel moves in mid-January to its new home at 530 Washington Crossing Road in Newtown, the congregation can be contacted or 215-369-1530.