Congregation Beth Israel has always been small. Its current home on Pleasant Valley Way in West Orange is a modest house with a maximum capacity of 50-60 people. It is little more than a single room with an ark at the front.

"It's a shtiebl" — a small neighborhood shul — said Rabbi H. Hillel Horowitz, who retired this fall after leading the Orthodox congregation for 42 years, since shortly after it was founded in the early 1960s. Beth Israel is the oldest continually operating Orthodox synagogue in the town.

His retirement may be ushering in a new era for the synagogue, originally called Young Israel of West Orange. A celebration of the rabbi's career, scheduled for Saturday evening, Dec. 15, will also be the kickoff for a $500,000 capital campaign intended to raise funds to erect a new building at the same location.

Plans for the structure have already been approved by the township. They include a 2,200-square-foot building with a sanctuary to seat 100 people, a small basement office, a walk-in vestibule area, a kitchen area, and a kiddush room. The women's section will be enlarged in the new building.

Synagogue president Douglas Eisenberg hopes construction will begin in a little over a year, and that the project will be completed in about two years.

"The building we're in is a disaster. It should have been torn down years ago. This is long overdue," said Eisenberg. "It's like living in a dilapidated house versus a new house. It's depressing to walk in now. I don't want to be depressed when I pray to God. I want a more uplifting building."

The congregation will remain in the current structure at 567 Pleasant Valley Way while the new building goes up on the lot. Once they have a certificate of occupancy, they will tear down the current building.

"All these years we've been in a small house," said Mitchell Liebowitz, who grew up at the synagogue. "It had its advantages, but the time comes — it probably came a while ago — when we need to expand and freshen up and accommodate more people. In recent times, more people are coming to morning minyan and Shabbat services. I'm an optimist. It's like that movie," he said, referring to Field of Dreams: "‘If you build it, they will come.'"

Although a majority of the congregation, with about 50 members, voted for the new building, not everyone is so keen on the plans.

"I like the synagogue the way it is now. It's an intimate setting, like a private club, with 12 or 13 people on a Saturday morning. It's a personal kind of synagogue," said Seymour Liebowitz, Mitchell's father, who has been attending services there since 1962, before Horowitz arrived. He said it is kind of a refuge for older people, who feel uncomfortable at the nearby family-oriented Ahawas Achim B'nai Jacob and David Orthodox synagogue. "There are very few older people there," he said.

"The expectation that we will be able to fill a larger shul is just dreaming," said Dr. Leo Troy, who started coming to Beth Israel about 35 years ago. "The demand is not there. It's true we get a fairly good-size minyan in the morning throughout the week, but frequently on Shabbat in the morning and on yom teivim [holidays], we have struggled."

Troy, 83, is among a small number of congregants who do not hold dual membership with one of the larger Orthodox synagogues in the area. He suggests the push for a new building comes from those who do. "I resent the fact that a small number of people gravitated over from the alphabet shul," he said, referring to AABJ&D. "They are the core of the takeover of our shul. They are the ‘raiders of our ark.'"

Troy said he prefers a renovation of the existing building rather than a new edifice.

At stake, for those against the plans, is the personality of the congregation. Will it remain a small, neighborhood shtiebl, or will it grow to resemble the other larger Modern Orthodox synagogues in the area? And is expansion necessarily an either/or proposition?

Mitchell Liebowitz doesn't think so.

"Part of the beauty of this shul is the shtiebl atmosphere. You don't get lost in the crowd. If we had a motto, it would be ‘Everyone counts,'" he said. "It's obviously a concern. We don't want to transform from a shtiebl to a big congregation. But there's a balance."

When Horowitz arrived at Young Israel of West Orange in 1965, it was still a fledgling congregation. He had been preceded by two rabbis. Accounts of the early years of the synagogue vary, but according to Horowitz, the congregation was to have merged into AABJ&D before he arrived, but due to a dispute remained autonomous.

"The original congregation was largely, although not entirely, Orthodox in name only," he said. "But the congregation that lasted and developed was sort of black-hatters although not quite."

After the 1967 riots in Newark, Orthodox Jews moved into West Orange. "People who felt this was a frummer [more religious] congregation, that's the people who joined," said Horowitz. The congregation grew to about 50 members. At that time, it was one of just two Orthodox congregations in West Orange; today, there are five, spanning a spectrum of Orthodoxy. Over the last 10 years, as people have moved away or died, Beth Israel's membership has drifted closer to Modern Orthodoxy.

Horowitz stayed for 42 years, but nearly left as soon as he arrived. "At the very beginning I took one look at the congregation and said, ‘This is not for me.'" But when he realized there was a movement among some of the congregants to push him out, he said, "I have a stubborn streak. So if they try to push me out, I stay."

He has served on a part-time basis from the beginning. The bulk of his professional life was spent in the chaplaincy at the VA New Jersey Health Care System in Lyons and East Orange, affiliated with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He ultimately served as chief of chaplain services at the two VA campuses.

In 1998, he was voted chief chaplain of the year by the VA. Counseling has always been his passion. "Counseling is so different from rabbinic work, with the Torah, the portion, sermons, teaching. I felt I needed to stay to keep my hand in this type of work." In 1999 he retired from the VA, but continued on at Beth Israel.

Horowitz himself has cultivated the shtiebl atmosphere of Beth Israel. In fact, for him a highlight of his rabbinate came years ago, when a small group launched a previous effort to build a bigger synagogue, and the rest of the congregation thwarted the idea. "The congregation did not want to grow. ‘It's a shtiebl; it's how we grew up, and this is what we want,' was the response."

Seymour Liebowitz suggested a different highlight — it was Horowitz, he said, who built the first sukka in West Orange. "He came with a saw and pieces of wood, and put up the sukka. It was unbelievable!"

During his tenure, Horowitz served a term as president of the Rabbinical Council of New Jersey. Longtime congregants praise his intellect. "He's a true scholar," said Mitchell Liebowitz.

But with Horowitz's retirement, the congregation appears to have reached a pivotal moment in terms of its religious identity. Horowitz described a divide in the synagogue. "There's a stirring within the community of people with different identities. Some want to follow Rabbi [Saul] Berman," he said, referring to the former director of Edah, a Modern Orthodox body, and a proponent of "open," or left-leaning, Orthodoxy. "Others feel that's the wrong direction and they want a frummer environment."

Horowitz is not shy about what he thinks. "I'd like them to keep it more to the Right. There are other congregations to the Left."

In the meantime, Horowitz said, he is looking forward to celebrating with the congregation at Beth Israel's first-ever dinner, to be held at Congregation Etz Chaim in Livingston. "I've had very good memories, very interesting relationships with people, and people I think I've helped," he said.

A replacement for Horowitz has not yet been chosen.