Temple Emanuel Sinai (Worcester, Massachusetts)

Temple Emanuel

Founded in 1921, Emanuel was the first of two Reform congregations founded in Worcester and was the largest synagogue (of any kind) in the city from the 1940s until 2013 when it integrated with its own offshoot, Temple Sinai. The congregation's third and most majestic home was constructed and consecrated in 1949 and greatly expanded in 1961 to accommodate a burgeoning religious school enrollment of nearly 1,000 students. Membership peaked at 1,340 families in 1957, making it one of the largest Reform congregations in the country at the time. As late as 1982, Temple Emanuel was still the second-largest Reform congregation in New England. As of 2009, membership was at 425 families.

Notably, Temple Emanuel had two long-tenured rabbis who were influential in the larger Worcester community, and in the Reform movement. Levi Olan (1929–1948) became the first Jewish president of the Worcester Ministerial Union and grew Temple membership from less than 200 families to 610 families during his tenure. Joseph Klein (1949–1996) continued Olan's tradition of interfaith leadership and also served as president of the Worcester Ministers' Association and the Greater Worcester Clergy Association. Membership grew during his tenure from 610 families to 1,340 families in 1957, before seeing a gradual decline.

Temple Sinai

In a letter dated December 16, 1957, the "Steering Committee of Temple Sinai," a small group of Temple Emanuel members who felt that the close family atmosphere of the Temple had been lost and that religious observance had become more conservative over the years, informed the secretary of the board of Temple Emanuel that they intended to create a second Reform congregation in Worcester. Temple Sinai's Statement of Principles indicated it would limit membership to 500 families.

Integration

Due to declining membership and increasing financial hardship resulting from demographic changes in Worcester's Jewish community, Temple Emanuel and Temple Sinai members engaged in re-integration discussions on December 9, 2011, when after 54 years of separation and at least 20 years of coaxing from the URJ, Temple Sinai leadership officially contacted Temple Emanuel to pursue it.

Temple Emanuel's leadership began to pursue opportunities to sell its May Street complex in 2012 when integration discussions with Temple Sinai concluded that Sinai's campus at 661 Salisbury Street was an ideal location for the new congregation. At a congregational meeting on May 30, 2013, the sale of the building at 280 May Street to the Worcester State University Foundation was approved by Temple Emanuel membership. The proposed re-integration with Temple Sinai was approved by the members of both congregations in June 2013. Both congregations had already voted to name the new entity "Temple Emanuel Sinai."

Rabbinical leadership

Cantorial leadership

Early history (1920–1948)

On June 29, 1920, sixty men whose families had moved from the Jewish enclave of Union Hill on Worcester's working class East Side to the more fashionable West Side met at the Bancroft Hotel in downtown Worcester to discuss plans to raise funds for the establishment of a synagogue on the West Side. In 1921, they began holding services (in a Modern Orthodox style) above Easton's tea room at Harrington Corner in downtown Worcester. In 1921, the group officially incorporated as the "Worcester Modern Congregation" and in 1922 opened its first synagogue in a home at 22 Suburban Road in Worcester, calling it the "West Side Community House." By 1923, the congregation had outgrown its facility and moved into the former Bancroft School building at 111 Elm Street, naming it Temple Emanuel. The congregation gradually adopted Reform practices and affiliated officially with the national movement, under the leadership of Rabbi Levi Olan, in 1937. In 1949, the congregation moved to its final home at the junction of May and Chandler Streets.

Temple Emanuel was active in the African-American Civil Rights Movement from very early in its history. In March 1931, the Temple's Brotherhood hosted a symposium of four lectures on the "Foundations of the Race Problem," including a lecture by NAACP co-founder W. E. B. Du Bois on March 11.

Joseph Klein era (1949–1977)

The Temple's longest-serving rabbi, Joseph Klein, began his duties on January 1, 1949, retired in 1977, and would remain on the pulpit as Rabbi Emeritus until his death in 1996. Klein is famously credited with inspiring at least eight young congregants at Temple Emanuel to attend Hebrew Union College, the Union for Reform Judaism's Rabbinical seminary, including the immediate past President of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Eric Yoffie.

Rabbi Klein also mentored Yoffie's predecessor, Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler who was hired in 1953 as Temple Emanuel's first Assistant Rabbi. Schindler served as Assistant Rabbi from 1953 to 1955 and as Associate Rabbi from 1955 to 1959 when he left the congregation to become Executive Director of the New England Region of what was then known as the UAHC. Rabbi Schindler was elected president of the UAHC in 1973, serving as the leader of North America's Reform Jews until 1996.

In 1957, Temple Emanuel's membership peaked at 1,340 member families (including 42 families who were also members of the Conservative Congregation Beth Israel). Worcester's ten other Jewish congregations, including Shaarai Torah, had a combined family membership of 1,410.

In his retirement, Klein went on to serve (part-time) as the first Rabbi of Temple Beth-El in Las Cruces, New Mexico until 1984 when he and his wife Rose returned to Worcester. He then served, actively, as Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Emanuel until his death at the age of 84 on Sunday September 29, 1996. Also of note, Klein was the great-grandfather of Hollywood actress Alisan Porter (Curly Sue) who won season 10 of NBC's The Voice.

Significant events

From 1959 to 1962, Temple Emanuel hosted a series of lectures called Temple Forum which saw Hubert Humphrey (1959), Martin Luther King, Jr. (March 12, 1961), Theodore Bikel (1962), and Eleanor Roosevelt (1962) all speak to the congregation.

In 1965, Herbie Hancock and other jazz legends accompanied 17-year-old congregant and conductor Jonathan Klein to record "Hear O Israel: A Prayer Ceremony in Jazz" in front of a crowd of 1,000 people inside the Temple.

Temple Emanuel was the site, on August 25, 1967, of the funeral for Dr. Gregory C. Pincus, an American biologist and researcher who co-invented the birth-control pill.

Post-Klein era (1977–2013)

In 1977, Temple Emanuel elected Rabbi Stanley Davids to succeed Rabbi Klein as its 5th spiritual leader. Rabbi Davids introduced the Temple's Chavurah program and brought the Gates of Prayer - New Union Prayerbook to the congregation. Rabbi Davids left in 1986 to become Rabbi of Central Synagogue in New York City.

On April 19, 1989, the funeral for Abbie Hoffman, the famous 1960's radical, founder of the Yippies and member of the Chicago Seven who had died at the age of 52 one week earlier, was held in Temple Emanuel's Persky sanctuary. Over 900 people were in attendance and an overflow crowd of hundreds more listened outside the temple over a loudspeaker. In attendance were basketball star Bill Walton, folk singer Pete Seeger, movie producer Bert Schneider, fellow Yippie Aron Kay, Republican political consultant Jay Severin, Hoffman's cousin and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sydney Schanberg, and Jerry Rubin, fellow Chicago Seven member.

Temple Emanuel celebrated its 70th anniversary on October 25, 1991 by honoring four people who had made significant impacts on the congregation. Then-Vice President of the Union for Reform Judaism Rabbi Eric Yoffie, who grew up in the congregation, gave the sermon. Rabbi Emeritus Joseph Klein and past presidents Milton S. Sheftel, Judith S. Yoffie and Wallace W. Wolf (posthumously) were honored.

On June 12, 2003, the congregation officially installed Carlton Watson, a black man who had converted to Judaism, as its president. Watson, executive director of the Henry Lee Willis Community Center in Worcester, is believed to be the first black person to serve as president of a synagogue in the United States.

Longmeadow native Rabbi Matthew L. Berger served as Temple Emanuel's ninth and last spiritual leader from July 2009 through June 2013. Berger served as the rabbi of Temple Emanuel Sinai for its first year of existence (June 2013 through June 2014) until he was replaced by Rabbi Valerie Cohen.

Education

Historically, Temple Emanuel's renowned Religious School met three days per week during the school year (Monday and Wednesday afternoons for Hebrew and Saturday mornings to study Torah, liturgy, Israel and Jewish culture) in the Temple's three-story classroom wing. In the mid-2000s the schedule was reduced to just Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings. The school worshipped together at the conclusion of classes every Saturday in the Temple's Stacey A. Cohan youth center.

In 2012, Temple Emanuel joined Congregation Beth Israel and Temple Sinai in creating PaRDes - The Worcester Jewish Community Religious School, under the auspices of the Jewish Federation of Central Massachusetts. The school's roughly 130 students attended Monday and Wednesday afternoon classes at Beth Israel and Saturday mornings at Temple Emanuel Sinai until the community school was disbanded in 2016.

Facilities

Temple Emanuel's home from 1949 to 2013, designed by Boston architect Charles R. Greco, is located at the junction of May and Chandler Streets in the heart of Worcester's leafy, residential West Side, adjacent to Worcester State University. The original structure, built in brick and designed in the Colonial Revival style, was consecrated in 1949. A 1,000-seat auditorium, a second classroom wing, and a suite of clergy offices were added in 1961.

The Temple's two-story 1961 classroom wing was leased to a series of educational institutions once religious school enrollment began to decline in the 1970s, including Worcester State University, the Abby Kelley Foster Charter Public School, Y.O.U., Inc.'s Kathleen Burns Preparatory School, and Quinsigamond Community College's Training and Education center.

Dedicated spaces

In 2011, the Persky sanctuary underwent its only major renovation. The first 6 rows of pews were removed to make room for an extended, lower bimah (speaker's platform) that was intended to create a more intimate atmosphere and enable the congregation to use the space more frequently. This reduced the capacity of the sanctuary from 918 to 626.

Parsonage

Temple Emanuel did not own a parsonage, but Rabbis Olan and Klein both resided at 5 Montvale Road in Worcester's exclusive Montvale Historic District.

Daily Minyan

Temple Emanuel was unique among American Reform synagogues in that for most of its history, it offered its members and the Worcester Jewish community the opportunity to attend a worship service seven days per week. In addition to clergy-led Shabbat services every Friday evening and Saturday morning, the congregation had a regular lay-led weekday minyan, which was held five days every week (Sunday through Thursday) from 1954 until 2011 when the 9:30 AM Sunday Shacharit (morning prayers) service was discontinued due to low attendance.

The "Daily Minyan" was originally instituted by Rabbi Klein on January 4, 1954, though it was led exclusively by lay leaders of the congregation. Temple Emanuel Sinai has continued the tradition of holding weekday services, though Mincha (afternoon prayers) and Maariv (evening prayers) are only read in the Salisbury Street sanctuary on Mondays at 5:45 PM. (The Tuesday evening service was discontinued by Temple Emanuel in 2012 and Wednesday and Thursday evening services were discontinued by Emanuel Sinai in early 2014.)

Shabbat

Regular Shabbat services are typically held Friday evenings at 7:00 and Saturday mornings at 10:30.

Temple Emanuel assistant/associate rabbis

Temple Emanuel auxiliary rabbis

Due to a decline in membership, Temple Emanuel's full-time assistant rabbi position was eliminated in June 1998. From that time through June 2009, the Temple was served by one full-time Rabbi with the assistance of a part-time Auxiliary Rabbi (or, from 2002–2004, a full-time cantor). From 2009 to 2013, all pastoral duties were performed by the Rabbi.

Temple Sinai history

Temple Sinai held services for its first 5 years (1957 to 1962) at the Worcester Jewish Community Center, which had moved in 1951 to Temple Emanuel's old building at 111 Elm Street. In 1962, Sinai moved to a 42-acre estate the congregation had purchased at 661 Salisbury Street, holding services and religious school in a large mansion. In 1980, the congregation opened its first purpose-built synagogue on the site, keeping the mansion intact for offices and religious school use. The Jewish Community Center, also outgrowing the facility on Elm Street, built on land next door at 633 Salisbury Street and moved in 1967.

Temple Sinai at first embraced many of the customs of "Classical" Reform Judaism that Temple Emanuel did not practice. For example, Sinai members shed traditional religious garments like Kippot (skullcaps) and Tallitot (prayer shawls), though those customs returned over the years.

The congregation hired its first rabbi, Leonard Helman, previously an assistant rabbi at what was then known as Temple Beth Israel in West Hartford, Connecticut, in 1958. He was succeeded by Rabbis John Rosenblatt and Michael Berenbaum. David Kaplan served as Cantorial soloist in its early days. Rabbi Gary Glickstein followed as rabbi from 1977 to 1985 and was succeeded by Rabbi Seth Bernstein, Temple Sinai's longest tenured spiritual leader, from 1986 to 2011. Cantor Wendy Autenrieth served the congregation as Cantor/Educator from 1987 to 1999.

Cantors

Prominent members

Worcester West Side Synagogue history

Worcester has five operating synagogues, with two other organizations holding regular Jewish worship services in the city.

Other assemblies

Worcester East Side Synagogue history

Before the Jewish population of Worcester shifted from Union Hill to the West Side, the community had established 12 Orthodox synagogues on the East Side.