The Maplewood Jewish Center has new moved to its new and much larger premises at 113 Parker Ave.
Photo by Elaine Durbach
September 25, 2008
Call it the little shul that could: The Maplewood Jewish Center, known until recently as Beth Ephraim and a decade ago battling to survive, is celebrating its growth with new, larger premises.
The congregation celebrated its move to a red brick building at 13 Parker Ave. with a Sept. 21 outdoor party.
Rabbi Sholom Bogomilsky and his wife, Frumie, welcomed dignitaries, including Maplewood Mayor Ken Pettis and councilwoman Kathy Leventhal, along with a crowd of around 200.
The Chabad-affiliated center, housed in what is now known as the Charles Kimmel Building, features a neoclassical peaked roof and white columns.
The building features 6,000 square feet of space — triple the space the congregation had in its former home just a few blocks away — set in spacious grounds. The long ground-floor room, with its gently curved ceiling, has a handsome ark and a bima, ready for the High Holy Days.
The building has accommodated various churches over the years, most recently a Latino congregation.
As part of its transformation into a synagogue, the white steeple was taken down. But, as the Bogomilskys said, there was little else to suggest its previous incarnations.
Rabbi Sholom Bogomilsky and his wife, Frumie, welcomed members of their congregation into the new home of the Maplewood Jewish Center.
Photo by Meir Reuveni
The new venue is situated within the eruv — the Shabbat boundary marker — established last December. By happy chance, it also has the advantage of being directly across the street from the Bogomilskys’ home and the center’s Kinder Gan preschool, which Frumie runs.
The center was previously housed in a converted home on the corner of Prospect Street and Parker Avenue. It moved there a few years after its establishment as an Orthodox congregation in 1961. The old building could hold just a few dozen people for services, and the Saturday kiddush was set up at the back of the same room, an unavoidable distraction from prayers.
Now, there is a social hall the same size as the sanctuary, with an adjoining kitchen.
“Now, the women can set up the kiddush downstairs without disturbing anyone, and there’s plenty of room,” Frumie said. There are also a number of classrooms, enough to accommodate religious-school classes, the planned expansion of the preschool, and the center’s adult programs.
Sholom Bogomilsky grew up in Maplewood, not far from the congregation in Newark’s Ivy Hill led by his father, Rabbi Samuel Bogomilsky. His parents still live in the house just a few blocks away.
An accountant by profession, Sholom Bogomilsky began helping out at Beth Ephraim on a part-time basis in the 1990s. After a break of a few years, he and Frumie returned to lead the congregation in 2001. He still works full time as an accountant, in addition to his rabbinical duties.
When he took over the congregation, its membership had dwindled to a handful of families. It is now up to 45 families. Even on regular Saturdays, it was getting harder to fit in all those coming to the service.
The community plans to retain the original building, to provide accommodations upstairs for the two young women who teach in its preschool, and possibly to rent out the ground-floor room.
Millburn Realtor Dave Cooper organized the purchase. He and his wife, Amy, who is the associate executive vice president of the Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey, joined the congregation in 2000.
Dave Cooper described the Bogomilskys as “the real deal,” with the passion, integrity, and warmth to form a true congregation. “Helping them and supporting this congregation — this is my charity,” he said. “What they do is unbelievable. I don’t think they sleep.”
The purchase of the building was made possible by a gift from the family of the late Charles Kimmel, who died in 2006. Though he and his wife, Cookie, lived in Livingston, through friends, they had shared in the congregation’s struggle to survive and thrive.
Speaking at the event, his son, Jason, said his father loved children and would have taken particular pleasure from seeing the Kinder Gan grow in this new venue. His mother added, “I could hear my husband approving of our decision.”
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