This month, we are celebrating the 36th anniversary of B’nai Sholom. In honor of this occasion, I would like to impart a little of the history of the old synagogues in our area. I learned this when I went along on a field trip with the 8th grade religious school class back in March. Rabbi Cashman led us on a tour of the sites of former synagogue locations here in Albany. It was great!
We started off by going to the home of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise. It’s located in downtown Albany, near the DMV on South Pearl Street. There is a plaque noting which building it is. To give a little background, Isaac Mayer Wise was born and raised in Bohemia (a part of Czechoslovakia). Because he found that the laws were restrictive against Jews, he chose to move to America. This was in 1846. He became rabbi of Congregation Beth El in Albany and was there for four years. He instituted many reforms in the practice of Judaism. This was controversial because Congregation Beth El was an orthodox congregation. In 1850, on the morning of Erev Rosh Hashanah, Wise was dismissed as rabbi. The next day, a fight broke out between Wise’s supporters and those who were opposed to him. Not long after this altercation, a group broke off from Congregation Beth El and formed Anshe Emeth (Men of Truth) with Rabbi Wise as their leader. Rabbi Wise stayed with this congregation until 1854.
Eventually, Anshe Emeth and Congregation Beth El reneged because each had too few members. In a gesture of reconciliation, the new congregation took from both of the original names and became Congregation Beth Emeth. They built a synagogue on Lancaster Street, which is where they stayed until 1957, at which point they moved to their current location on Academy Road. I make mention of this because it is from the synagogue on Lancaster Street that we got our beautiful Ark.
Our congregation was a split from Congregation Beth Emeth. In 1971, Beth Emeth decided not to renew the contract of its current rabbi, Rabbi Alvin Roth. When the congregation was informed of this, the people who felt close to Rabbi Roth appealed to the board to revoke the board’s decision, but that was to no avail. Consequently, about 85 families left with Rabbi Roth and they formed a new congregation, naming themselves the New Reform Congregation. The official start date of the New Reform Congregation is December 12, 1971.
The New Reform Congregation held their first Shabbat service on December 31, 1971 at the United Fourth Presbyterian Church on Western Avenue. Rabbi Roth was friendly with the reverend at the church and the church elders gave the congregation permission to hold services and religious school classes there. The name of the congregation changed to B’nai Sholom on January 27, 1972. The first Torah scroll the congregation obtained (on a permanent loan basis) was the one from Czechoslovakia. We still hold this one in our Ark. The Torah scroll was dedicated on September 22, 1972. The congregation continued to meet at the United Fourth Presbyterian Church until they bought the land we currently occupy on Whitehall Road. The groundbreaking for the synagogue was on April 1, 1979 and the dedication of the temple was a three-day event from September 14-16, 1979.
And here we are, 36 years later -- the product of people who were not content with the ways things were and had the immense courage to get up and make a change. How inspiring! I love that these are our roots.
Some of the people who were part of the original 85 families are still in our congregation today – Richard and Vera Propp, Stan Bergman, Bob Greenbaum, Frank Steinhardt, and Ruth Aronson. Deb Adler’s father, Fred Adler, was also a founding member. If I have neglected to mention someone, I apologize. I hope I haven’t done that.
Moving ahead these 36 years, I would like to talk about a few programs/happenings that have gone on lately here at B’nai Sholom. The first was the Shabbat study day on healthcare. This was held back in February and was sponsored by the Social Action committee. They put together a great program that included Torah study (led by Rabbi Cashman), viewing the movie “Sicko” and then having a discussion about the present state of healthcare and what we can do to address the problems with our healthcare system. It was a great program – engaging, informative and enjoyable.
A week after the Shabbat study day, we had our third B’nai Sholom Bet Kafeh (fair trade coffeehouse). What a nice way to spend an evening! Will Vail is a warm host and I always enjoy listening to him sing and play the guitar. When Monica Vail joins him on the fiddle, it is so special. Phil and Marty Teumim performed as well and they entertained us with some great original tunes. Phil played “Mexican Rabbi” which has become a standard tune at the coffeehouse. Melissa Putterman-Hoffmann sang a few songs with Will and then performed an original song of her own! To round things out, David Liebschutz shared a story and Liz Davis recited a John Donne poem. Fantastic! And then, to top off the evening, Rabbi Cashman came and sang a few songs – non-liturgical! The evening finished off in grand style with all of the evening’s singers up on stage to sing one final song together.
About a week later, we had our biennial Volunteer Shabbat. We had a great turnout – the sanctuary was filled and Maxine Goldberg produced a beautiful pamphlet listing the names of our volunteers. It was a long list. We gathered afterwards for a pot luck dinner – one of my favorite things to do for both the company and the food. It was very obvious by the turnout that the synagogue thrives on the energy of our volunteers.
Please join us as a volunteer – whether it be for a program, event or service. Join us as an organizer or as a participant. There are wonderful ways for us to gather as a community. I hope you’ll take advantage of many of them.
Over 36 years, we have grown as a community. We have grown in membership and in our ties to the congregation. May this vitality and sense of community carry us through another 36 years!
Baruch Atah Ad-nai Eloheinu Melech Ha’Olam, Shehechiyanu V’kiyimanu V’higianu Lazman Ha-Zeh.
