B’nai Shalom celebrates renovations

by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

With songs and a triumphant march, 150 members of West Orange’s B’nai Shalom synagogue celebrated the completion Sunday of a two-year, $5 million renovation.

The newly renovated Morris and Miriam Hammer Campus transforms a 1950s-style building into a far larger, more modern facility. SWS Architects designed a building that doubled the capacity in the main sanctuary, added classrooms and multi-functional meeting rooms, a library with a computer area, a new chapel, a new lobby area, a bridal room, and a glass loggia that can be used for receptions and other functions.

Accompanied by local educator and B’nai Shalom member Moshe Rudin on guitar, congregants marched joyfully with the synagogue’s Torah scrolls from the Wilshire Hotel along Mount Pleasant Avenue.

Reaching the doors to the synagogue, the community erupted into dancing and singing around the scrolls.

Miriam Hammer, whose family contributed $1 million toward the renovation in honor of her and her late husband, Morris, cut the yellow ribbon across the entrance. Rabbi Stanley Asekoff recited blessings for hanging six mezuzot, which were affixed to three outside entrances and several inside entrances. Celebrants sailed down the corridors, through the loggia dedicated by Donald and Ellen Legow, and into the Robert and Pauline Gruhin Sanctuary, which still carried the scent of fresh wood. There they danced again with their Torah scrolls, finally placing them in the ark.

Inside the sanctuary, designed in the round, they listened to speeches and applauded as flowers were offered to donors. West Orange Mayor John McKeon joined the celebration, offering words of congratulation, before the festivities went into full swing with a champagne brunch.

The celebration marked the second dedication at the location. The first took place in 1955 when the Conservative synagogue, founded as The Jewish Center of West Orange in 1941, moved from 403 Pleasant Valley Way to its current address, 300 Pleasant Valley Way. The June 4 event was also the third time the community had marched down Pleasant Valley Way with their Torah scrolls. The second was on May 17, 1987, when the congregation rededicated its newly repaired scrolls.

Michael Herman, a member who attended both previous dedication ceremonies, said the renovation would provide a lift for the congregation. “Everybody and everything needs a spiritual renewal,” he said. “This will give us a renewal of spirit and pride in our synagogue.” Still, he said, it is Asekoff, the congregation’s religious leader, who is “the mortar that’s held this synagogue and community together.”

Asekoff, who said he finds the refurbished building “lovely,” has a heightened appreciation for the new sanctuary. “It’s a wonderful place to daven. It does what a sanctuary is supposed to do. It creates a physical setting for prayer, learning, and spiritual expression. It’s very meaningful.”