Temple B’nai Israel readies for final Shabbat weekend

Debbie Iszauk’s connection to Temple B’nai Israel goes back more than 65 years, when her parents joined the congregation in 1960. She’s readying for a final Shabbat at the Reform congregation, which has been a fixture in the White Oak/McKeesport communities since 1912.

Iszauk said she couldn’t recall why her family became members of B’nai Israel. The area still had two additional congregations at the time of their joining — Tree of Life Sfard and Gemilas Chesed.

“I don’t know why they made the choice,” she said. “I know my mother said it would be one of the two and not the third.”

Get The Jewish Chronicle Weekly Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up

Iszauk has fond memories of her semiweekly trips to B’nai Israel for Hebrew school, recounting spending 15 cents for the bus after elementary school before stopping for a 10 cent treat on her way to class every Tuesday and Thursday.

Friday night services, Sunday school, confirmation and youth group are among the connections she forged with the congregation before she left for college. When Iszauk returned to the region she joined another congregation with her family before finding her way back to B’nai Israel after her daughter was in college.

“We had a discussion that I really wanted to come back to temple,” she said. “Coming back was this warm, wonderful feeling, a different building but the same people.”

Iszauk served on the board and for the last five years worked in the synagogue’s offices. Now she’s readying for a final goodbye.

The congregation will celebrate its last Shabbat service on April 25 and spend the weekend recalling its historic legacy.

Temple B’nai Israel was formed in 1912, eventually finding a home on Shaw Avenue in McKeesport. And while it might be hard to imagine now, the Mon Valley town was once home to more than 6,500 Jewish residents, had four synagogues, numerous Jewish auxiliaries and a community religious school with its own board of education, according to Eric Lidji, director of the Rauh Jewish History Program & Archives at the Heinz History Center, who spoke to the Chronicle about the synagogue earlier this year.

The congregation moved to White Oak in 2000, after buying the Tree of Life Sfad’s building. At that time, the congregation had 170 family units. It now has somewhere between 30 and 40, according to the congregation’s president, Lou Anstandig, who noted that most members no longer live in White Oak.

It is for this reason that the congregation has chosen to close its doors.

“On our executive committee, the youngest people are 80 years old,” he said. “We’re between 80 and 86 and there is no backup. There is no one else to take over the reins.”

Anstandig joined B’nai Israel n 1973 after marrying and moving to White Oak with his wife, who grew up in McKeesport about a block from the synagogue’s original building. He saw the writing on the wall a few years ago, he said, and moved the South Hills but maintained his involvement with the congregation.

When Anstandig thinks about the meaningful moments in his life that involved B’nai Israel, he recalls bar and bat mitzvahs and his wedding — which occurred at a synagogue in Monessen because B’nai Israel was being remodeled, but was officiated by rabbis from both congregations.

He also remembered when B’nai Israel moved to White Oak nearly a quarter century ago.

“It was a really big deal,” he said, “covered by all the TV networks in Pittsburgh and there were articles in all the newspapers. We were the last Jewish congregation in McKeesport.”

Rabbi Danny Schiff, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s H. Arnold and Adrien B. Gefsky Community Scholar, was the rabbi at B’nai Israel from 1993 until 2009 and shepherded the congregation through its move from McKeesport to White Oak. Schiff said he considered himself “extremely fortunate” to have had the opportunity to serve the congregation and to be its spiritual leader during the move, something he considers a unifying moment for the community.

Schiff said that while the closing of the congregation is “obviously a sad moment,” B’nai Israel can “hold its head high because it can look back on more than a century of extraordinarily powerful contributions.”

“The best you can hope for in any congregation,” he said, “is that you are a link in the great chain of Jewish history, and Temple B’nai Israel was.”
Demographics, Schiff said, dictated B’nai Israel’s decision, noting that congregations — and communities — yield the stage from time to time to other congregations and communities.

“It’s the way of life,” he said. “On an individual human level, we reach peak strength and then that strength ebbs away. It’s true of communities, as well.”

Rabbi Howie Stein, B’nai Israel’s current spiritual leader, said it was an honor to serve the congregation in its final days and “bring it to a dignified closing.”

The congregation’s history, Stein said, is a lesson in the history of American Jewry.

“Jews came to this country seeking opportunity and in many cases that wasn’t the stereotypical big cities like New York or Chicago,” he said. “They spread out and became part of the fabric of smaller towns and cities and left a legacy and imprint on those communities in very significant ways.”

B’nai Israel’s legacy will continue to make an impact on the community. Its building has been sold, Iszauk said, and will now become a banquet center, something she thinks is perfect for White Oak.

The sale will help fund care of the congregation’s cemetery, which will be handled by the Jewish Cemetery and Burial Association of Western Pennsylvania.

The synagogue’s six large stained glass windows are being sent to a congregation in Illinois, which is constructing a building that will incorporate the windows.

B’nai Israel, Anstandig said, has been working with Noah Levine and the Jewish Community Legacy Project, preparing for the closure.

“One thing he told us, I remember vividly, is that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail,” Anstandig said. “So, this whole closing concept has been going on for a year-and-a-half.”

The congregation will be in the building until the end of May and is still working to determine what will happen with its Torah scrolls and other Judaica.

In a nod to modern times, Anstandig said, a new website is being constructed that will be a virtual home for the congregation’s yahrzeit plaques, and will contain information about the cemetery and where people are buried. It will include the history of B’nai Israel and there are plans to connect it to the Rauh Jewish Archives website.

Anstandig’s connection to the synagogue won’t be strictly virtual, though, once the building empties.

“A group of us, 12 or 15, typically get together for lunch on Wednesday and that will continue even after the temple closes. It’s a group known as Romeo’s Retired Old Men Eating Out,” he said.

In the end, Stein said, it’s important to mark both the bitter and the sweet of B’nai Israel’s closing.

“Like when a loved one dies, you want to recognize our sadness and grief but also remember the happy times and joy and do that in a dignified way that leaves a lasting imprint on the community or people we are a part of,” he said.

Weekend festivities to mark B’nai Israel’s closing include an April 25 Shabbat service and oneg, Saturday morning Shabbat service and kiddush lunch, and a dinner off site. Tours will also be given of the old temple location in McKeesport on Saturday. PJC

David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.