Highland Park Conservative Temple, Congregation Anshe Emeth to merge
Congregation Anshe Emeth of South River, the latest synagogue in Middlesex County to fall victim to changing demographics, will merge with the Highland Park Conservative Temple by the beginning of the year.
Although the “little contractual things” remain to be ironed out, both congregations have voted to approve the merger.
Anshe Emeth’s 88 Main Street building is expected to be closed by the end of this week, congregation president Ira Marshall said on Nov. 21.
“I expect in a week or two we’ll finalize the paperwork and then it goes to the state and becomes final 30 days after that,” he said. “I expect that will be about the beginning of the year.”
The merger is the second of local Conservative congregations in several months. In May, Congregation Adath Israel, which had been in Woodbridge for 99 years, merged with Congregation Neve Shalom of Metuchen. Three years earlier, Congregation Ohev Shalom in Colonia had merged with Neve Shalom.
All of those congregations, however, are in the northern part of Middlesex County, where the Jewish population is declining. South River is in the southern part of the county, which has municipalities with large Jewish populations, including East Brunswick and Highland Park.
South River is adjacent to East Brunswick, which has three synagogues — the Conservative East Brunswick Jewish Center, Reform Congregation B’nai Shalom, and Orthodox Young Israel of East Brunswick.
“We just couldn’t make it any more financially,” acknowledged Marshall. “We had to either move to another location or merge. South River once had a very vibrant Jewish community. It was a community where there were a lot of manufacturers and many were Jewish. Now there are only five or six Jewish families left. The demographics changed and no one wanted to come to South River. We could no longer sustain ourselves.”
The Highland Park temple voted at a congregational meeting on Nov. 9 to approve the merger, according to its president-elect Sam Kamens. He said Anshe Emeth’s members will have until Jan. 1 to decide whether they want to join the new congregation, to be known as the Highland Park Conservative Temple-Anshe Emeth.
Many congregants of the South River shul have already integrated themselves into their new synagogue.
“We’re already conducting programming together,” said Kamens. “They’re coming to us for services, and now their sisterhood is participating in our sisterhood events. They’ve been receiving our e-mails, bulletins, and voice messages for the past two or three months.”
Although Anshe Emeth congregants are already joining HPCT for Shabbat and holiday services, the synagogue continues to use its own building for weekday minyan, or morning services.
HPCT’s pre-merger membership is 425 families; Anshe Emeth has 120 family units, down from more than 300 in the 1970s and 1980s.
Kamens said the two synagogues began a series of meetings in September 2005.
After its building closes, Anshe Emeth will continue to run its own morning minyan Sunday through Friday, using the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County’s South River offices. HPCT has its own morning and evening minyans.
“The Highland Park temple will run it as a satellite minyan,” said Marshall. “The minyan is so important for the South River people. We had people attend who didn’t even belong to our synagogue.”
A choice of partners
Anshe Emeth began in 1919 in South River and broke ground on its current location in 1953.
It has no religious school and none of its members, the majority of whom are over 50, has school-age children.
“We closed our Hebrew school three years ago, and at the time we only had three or four children,” said Marshall. “They then left to join other synagogues.”
The synagogue sold its 14,000-square-foot main building and a 3,000-square-foot adjacent building to a Spanish church for $1.63 million; the closing is imminent. Although the building, onto which an addition was built in 1974 — mostly to benefit its then burgeoning religious school — still has some mortgage debt, the majority of the profits of the sale will go to the newly merged congregation.
In exchange, Marshall said, Anshe Emeth members will be charged only $36 annually in dues for the next five years.
Also coming along with the Anshe Emeth members are the congregation’s prayer books, Humashim, megilla scrolls, and two Torah scrolls. Another two Torah scrolls will be retained for the satellite minyan. Some of the religious articles are being held in storage because of a devastating fire at the Highland Park temple on Aug. 24 that has forced it to use the YM-YWHA of Raritan Valley and Highland Park High School for services and programming while the building is being repaired.
“We voted to merge in June but the fire put everything on the back burner for awhile,” said Marshall. “But they didn’t miss a beat.”
The contract of Rabbi Nathan Langer of Anshe Emeth, which runs through June 2007, will be bought out after the merger is finalized, principals said. Langer, like his two predecessors, has an Orthodox ordination. He succeeded Rabbi Joseph Maza — who served the congregation for more than 47 years — several years ago.
Marshall said that once his synagogue made the decision to merge it explored a choice of partners. The congregation considers itself traditional, somewhere between Orthodox and Conservative. Men and women sit together but women are not permitted to chant from the Torah or lead prayer services. Unlike the closest synagogue — Congregation Beth Ohr in Old Bridge, an egalitarian synagogue — the Highland Park temple offers both egalitarian and nonegalitarian service options.
Anshe Emeth members also preferred HPCT to the East Brunswick Jewish Center, which is nonegalitarian.
“It had to be close to our tradition,” said Marshall. “A committee presented both congregations to our membership, and they chose Highland Park.”
Kamens said he believed there were some Anshe Emeth members who were interested in egalitarian services who will now have that option, further making the merger a good fit.
“We’re very excited about this influx of talent,” he said. “We’re obviously getting an influx of members, but we don’t just want members. We want members who are involved and concerned and these people are.”
Marshall took a stalwart position on the merger, adding, “It’s a shame this thing had to end like this, but nothing is forever. Hopefully, this will be successful and the people of Anshe Emeth and the Highland Park temple will continue on together for many years.”
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