In celebration of its 160th anniversary, Temple B’nai Jeshurun held Friday night services on Sept. 12 at its former home in Newark, now the Hopewell Baptist Church.
Photo by David Hollander
At the service
ABOUT 550 MEMBERS of Temple B’nai Jeshurun were welcomed to the Sept. 12 service by about 15 Hopewell Baptist church hostesses and some 50 other members. Dignitaries and politicians in attendance included state legislator Grace Spencer, Essex County Freeholders president Blonnie Watson, Essex County freeholder Patricia Sebold, Millburn Mayor Sandra Haimoff, Newark council members Oscar S. James II and Carlos Gonzalez, Newark Museum director Mary Sue Sweeney Price, Rutgers University professor of history Clement Price, the Rev. Gloria White of Mt. Zion Baptist Church, Cantor Lee Coopersmith of Temple B’nai Abraham, and Union for Reform Judaism board chair Peter Weidhorn.
September 18, 2008
Ten buses from Short Hills pulled up to the Hopewell Baptist Church in Newark in the rain on Friday evening, Sept. 12. The passengers, members of Temple B’nai Jeshurun, disembarked and headed into the church sanctuary, where they were greeted by women dressed in white — hostesses from the church.
As they entered, those who had been there before noticed that everything was as they had left it, down to the position of the chairs on the bima. Patriarchs’ and matriarchs’ names were still there on the windows, not only maintained but burnished.
Not so unusual perhaps, until you remember that it has been 50 years since the congregation left this building in the hands of its Christian successors.
On the occasion of its 160th anniversary, Temple B’nai Jeshurun held Friday night services in the building it called home for half a century. The congregation moved into its third home, on High Street, in 1915 and stayed until 1968, when it moved to the suburbs of Essex County.
“We could have thrown a grand party, gotten dressed up, had cocktails and appetizers. But we decided that was not the appropriate way to celebrate 160 years. We thought there must be a more contemplative, solemn way to celebrate an important milestone,” said Rabbi Matthew Gewirtz.
Since he arrived at the congregation two years ago, Gewirtz has been forging ties with leaders in Newark, including Dr. Jason Guice, pastor of the Hopewell Baptist Church. The two have discussed pulpit swapping; Guice spoke at TBJ on Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday in 2007. And both agreed that the 160th anniversary presented an opportunity for Gewirtz to speak at Hopewell.
Saying that his congregants and B’nai Jeshurun members “are all one; we’re all part of the human family,” Guice, in a phone interview, told NJJN, “We have an open-door church; we welcome them anytime. We count them as friends.
“They are tied to our building through history, and we are able to maintain and preserve that history. We want them to feel comfortable here and to teach succeeding generations to be appreciative of their past, and they are.”
Talking about the race riots that exploded in Newark the year before B’nai Jeshurun left the city, Gewirtz said, “The world was falling apart and there was all that urban flight. It’s time to come together.”
Guice called the evening, “a historical and magnificent service. It was more than fantastic. It was out of sight. It brought joy to the entire city.” He spoke about “receiving our friends who did so much for this city and who continue to do so much in and around New Jersey.”
For Blonnie Watson — Newark resident, Essex County Freeholders president, Hopewell Baptist Church member, and head of the committee that planned the event — the evening was memorable. “I’m still floating from Friday night,” she said several days later in a phone conversation. “It was so beautiful to see these two congregations coming together.”
Jerry Dreskin, whose family members have been members of B’nai Jeshurun for five generations, loved the idea of holding the service in Newark. He’s been back himself to the city and the building several times.
“I go because it makes me feel good,” said Dreskin. “I’m not a fan of suburbia. And when I go into the temple, it’s physically as breathtaking as I remember it. I like to stand on the bima and pretend it’s my bar mitzva,” he told NJJN.
For him, the highlight of the evening was watching the reactions of people who had never been to the building or hadn’t been back in years. “People’s jaws dropped,” he said, as they looked around the temple.
Margery Karp, whose family has belonged to the temple for several generations, did not grow up at the synagogue. Her family had moved to the Millburn/Short Hills area and had joined another synagogue by the time B’nai Jeshurun left Newark. Still, going to the old building brought a rush of memories for her, particularly of her cousin’s bar mitzva. “Rabbi Pilchik asked him a rhetorical question and he answered. No one was expecting him to answer and my cousin gave a long-winded explanation. And the whole congregation broke up.”
Rabbi Ely Emanuel Pilchik served as religious leader from 1947 to 1981, Rabbi David Wice served from 1941 to 1947, and Rabbi Solomon Foster served from 1905 to 1941.
Spiritual feeling
The evening inspired an outpouring of nostalgia. Rabbi emeritus Barry Greene and Cantor emeritus Norman Summers conducted a large part of the service using the old Union Prayer Book and the melodies from an earlier era. If the “thees” and “thous” stuck in the mouth of the young Rabbi Gewirtz during the sections he led with Cantor Howard Stahl, it was music to the ears of others. Dreskin, who was raised on the prayer book, said it was “fun to recapture and hear the old words and tunes.”
In his sermon, Gewirtz alluded to his predecessors.
“I am sure you can look around and remember which family sat in which pews. If you close your eyes and remember, I bet you can remember what you celebrated here and who you mourned,” he said. “If you look at this bima with an eye toward the past, you can remember the oratorical mastery of Foster, Wice, Pilchik, and Greene. The cantorial brilliance of Cowan, Hecht, and Summers. Listen carefully enough and I bet you can see them preaching and praying; some of those lessons and tunes, still resonating in relevance today.”
Pilchik’s daughter, Judy, who is about to go to Israel to study in honor of a milestone birthday, was called up for a tefilat haderech, a blessing for her journey.
Calling it “the moment of the evening,” Gewirtz said, “Here she is, daughter of one of the greatest rabbis of the congregation, on the bima, where her father served for so long, getting blessed…. It was as close as we could get to Ely.”
Meanwhile, Dreskin felt he could hear the echo of all the sermons that had been given there. “It was reliving something from the past — it isn’t ghosts; it’s memories of who we were.”
The highlight for Guice came at the end, when Jewish gospel singer Joshua Nelson, who serves as director of music at Hopewell Baptist Church, gave a surprise performance. “That was the cap on the evening,” the pastor said.
From her perspective, Watson said, she enjoys feeling a part of history. “This is a magnificent building and the spiritual feeling that is there every Sunday when we come started long ago. It doesn’t matter if it is Baptist or Jewish, it is God’s spirit that remains in the building.”
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