Bittersweet seder
New Castle synagogue shares its last seder meal with the community
TNEW CASTLE, Pa. hey chanted the traditional Hebrew blessings and recounted the symbolic meanings of the different foods on the table for the seder meal, re-creating the ancient Passover holiday for one last time as a congregation.
Members of Temple Hadar Israel decided that before they close their doors for good, they were going to open them wide.
So they invited dozens of members of the New Castle community and beyond — friends, neighbors, Christian clergy and others — to join them for this central feast of the Jewish calendar. About 90 people sat at the long tables covered with white tablecloths in the synagogue’s fellowship hall Tuesday.
Like the Passover table itself, set with both the wine of celebration and the salt water and bitter herbs of sorrow, this meal was a bittersweet.
“It’s a sad occasion because all the events of life with my family were done here,” said Bruce Waldman, whose grandfather was a founder of a synagogue that later merged into Hadar Israel.
Yet Mr. Waldman, 74, who as temple secretary has
maintained records dating back to the Yiddish-language minutes of the early years, enjoyed the meal with Christian guests who are lifelong family friends.
Like a growing number of synagogues in the smaller cities of the Tri-State area, Temple Hadar Israel has decided to close its doors. It will close at the end of 2017 following a long decline in membership. As a result, Tuesday night’s seder was its last as a group.
The decline mirrors the decline in population and industry in this once-bustling mill town.
Earlier generations of Jews — immigrating from Europe and speaking Yiddish or German — arrived in New Castle and many other mill towns. The Jewish immigrants typically didn’t work in the factories themselves but in the small retail shops — furniture stores, butcher shops, shoemaker shops — along its shopping streets.
At one time in New Castle, there were two synagogues, one Reform and one Conservative, with more than 300 families combined. Eventually, their numerical decline prompted a merger, and now the combined congregation has roughly 60 individual members, about 15 of them too infirm to attend
It continued to have regular Sabbath services and classes led by Pittsburgh Rabbi Howard Stein.
As with many small-town synagogues, the Jewish population shrank as the closing of mills and the opening of malls put the squeeze on small businesses, and younger Jews often left town for college and pursued professional careers elsewhere. And larger social trends, including a rise in secularism in America and in intermarriage among Jews and non-Jews, has taken its toll on religious observance.
After Hadar Israel closes, members will probably attend synagogues in either Youngstown, Ohio, or Pittsburgh. There aren’t many choices in between, Mr. Waldman said.
“Most of those along the way have already closed,” he said. “Ellwood [City], Beaver, Beaver Falls, Sharon.”
Like other synagogues winding down their affairs, Hadar Israel has made arrangements such as making sure its cemeteries will be maintained and deciding how to dispose of assets ranging from endowments to Torah scrolls.
Hadar Israel donated one of its historic Torah scrolls, believed to have been crafted in Poland a century ago, to a new synagogue in that country, and it plans to donate another to a Pittsburgh organization.
Hadar Israel sold its building in 2015 to a property owner that is using its former space for occupational and physical therapy. The congregation has continued to rent the worship space.
Hadar Israel donated many of its historic artifacts to the Rauh Jewish History Program & Archives at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh.
“I’m sad about the fact that we won’t be a congregation that’s together on a weekly basis,” said Hadar Israel president Sam Bernstine, 60. “But I’m actually very pleased and appreciative about what I call the temple-in-transition process over the last five years.”
It has worked with the Jewish Community Legacy Project, which helps small synagogues manage their closing, and the Foundation of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.
Congregation vice president Larry Buntman, 58, said the synagogue holds many memories for him. His grandfather was a synagogue founder, and his daughter, Gwendolyn, also at the seder, was the last person to have a coming-of-age bat mitzvah at Hadar Israel.
He said the dedication to the temple shown by his uncles and other older relatives “made me want to do the same.”
For the non-Jewish guests, the invitation to share the seder was poignant.
“It’s beautiful,” said Charles Beshero, a Maronite Catholic who recalls growing up among Jewish neighbors, including a mailman, poultry butcher and grocer. Hearing the small number of children taking part in the service, he said he was impressed how they’re learning to “carry on the tradition as they get older.”