Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on May 30, 2024

Beth Israel Congregation wont go gently into the good night. Or maybe its the little engine that could. Or perhaps its the cat on the poster on the wall in the human resources department of every corporation urging you to just hang on.

Then again, maybe the 133-year-old congregation is more than a clich and is simply fighting to remain relevant to and for its members.

Beth Israel has, yet again, found one more trick up its sleeve enabling it to continue offering Shabbat services and Jewish community in Washington, Pennsylvania.

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This time, though, the solution is both more permanent and more unusual.

The congregation is selling its building to AMVETS, a congressionally chartered veterans service organization.

What makes the sale so beneficial, besides unburdening the congregation of the need to keep up the building, is that AMVETS will allow Beth Israel to use the small chapel for free for the next 20 years.

The arrangement means that the congregation will continue to hold services for its members now numbering fewer than 30 family units into the foreseeable future.

The membership number is a bit misleading because the pandemic brought something of a revival to the congregation.

When we do Zoom on Friday night, we have people from all over the country, David Posner said.

Posner leads Friday night services. He and his wife, Marilyn, said that people from all over the country join them on Shabbat using the streaming service including participants from California, South Carolina and Texas.

In fact, the Zoom services have been a way for those who live far away but have spiritual connections with the congregation to stay in touch.

A woman in California, who is related to our very first rabbi who served this congregation from 1891 to 1941, comes, David Posner said. She loves our Friday night service and then she goes to her shul afterward because were three hours earlier.

Ever prescient, Marilyn Posner said that she began preparing for the sale of the building several years ago. She has given away, sold or put on consignment much of what a congregation acquires over more than a century of existence.

A Judaica antiques dealer has taken some of the non-kosher items and the congregation has donated books to an eastern Pennsylvanian prison whose inmates dont have access to the internet.

Still, Marilyn Posner has had difficulty finding homes for all of the material including furniture, artwork, prayer books and childrens Sunday school books. The congregation recently held an auction to help empty the synagogue, but its leaders know they might have to make some tough decisions.

Items will be available until at least June 10, but Marilyn Posner has coordinated with the Jewish Burial Society to bury any unclaimed books when the time comes.

An art gallery in McKees Rocks is auctioning off artwork, a task they hope to have completed by mid-summer.

For Marilyn Posner, sorting through the synagogues items has been a way to reconnect with its history.

Our very first rabbi Rabbi Jacob Goldfarb we had a beautiful portrait of him that we gave to his great-granddaughter, she said. Weve found other items books that were inscribed for someones bar mitzvah that we returned to the family.

Marilyn Posner has shared her journey of discovery and cataloging with the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center, first with former archivist Susan Melnick, then with Director Eric Lidji.

Lidji said that Melnick launched the Small Town Jewish History Project, a proactive effort to go to small towns, build relationships and figure out what records needed to be preserved.

He has worked with Beth Israel and Marilyn Posner for the last eight years and said hell now have to invent ways to stay in touch with a person hes come to admire.

Beth Israel is on the older end of small-town Jewish congregations in the region, Lidji said. Its not the oldest, but its definitely on the older side.

The congregation, he said, is similar to others that developed in small towns outside of Pittsburgh.

Western Pennsylvania had this huge economic expansion starting in the mid-19th century, continuing into the 20th century, Lidji said. You had all these Jews coming over from Eastern Europe that were looking for opportunity and willing to go to these small towns. They find enough other Jews living there and are able to pull together these synagogues that last, in some cases, 100 years or more.

Eventually, Lidji explained, there are no longer children in the congregation so the religious school closes, and then maybe theres no longer a need for a full-time rabbi, or a rabbi at all.

You see the same general arc, he said.

The experiences of small-town congregations can be a good barometer of what will happen to congregations in urban areas and cities, Lidji said.

All of the egalitarianism in the community starts in the small towns and makes its way into the city, he said. A lot of the innovations designed to try and accommodate multiple viewpoints start in the small towns and move into the city. A lot of the demographic issues do, as well.

The same holds true for antisemitism, Lidji said, noting that Jews in small towns have a more immediate relationship with their non-Jewish neighbors.

Lidji is glad to see an organization like AMVETS taking over the Beth Israel building rather than watching it fall into disrepair.

Its my hope that its the kind of the thing where in 25 or 30 years youll still be able to go down there and see the building and get a sense of what Jewish life was like, he said.

I feel very honored to be a part of this family, Marilyn Posner reflected, but noted this isnt the end.

We are not going away. We are just not taking care of the whole building. PJC

David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

See the article here:

Washington's Beth Israel Congregation sells building but continues operations - thejewishchronicle.net

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