TRAVEL IPAVIEI_WO Full Service Travel Agency Traveling Has Never Been Easier Pick up the phone & we'll handle the rest... • • • • • • • • • • Instant Ticketing Boarding Passes Free Ticket Delivery Corporate Account Incentive Package Cruises Groups Rail Air Hotel & Car Reservations Charters (313) 827-9920 1-800 729-9820 FAX (313) 355-1701 Rodef Shalom Temple Pittsburgh: Distinctive Sites RUTH ROVNER Special to The Jewish News JJ F Feet First • • DANNY'S SHOE REPAIR All Types of Orthopedic Work All Leather Goods Repairs • Dyed Leather • Cleaning Shoes • Boots • Purses Hockey Gloves, Zippers and Belt Repair (Over 45 Years Experience) 32980 Middlebelt Road Broadway Plaza Shopping Center Farmington Hills 737-0871 Bring In Ad For 20% Discount On Shoe Repair ISRAEL DYSAUTONOMIA BAR-BAT MITZVAH & FAMILY TOURS A Bar or Bat Mitzvah celebrated in Israel is a very special experience for the entire family. During my 10 years as an Israeli tour guide, it was my pleasure and privilege to pioneer in the development of this program. Now, as a tour operator for 8 years, I personally plan every detail, select the guide, arrange the ceremony on Masada, a special service at Yad Va-shem, a beautiful banquet din- ner, and much more . . For a vacation you will never forget, come with me to Israel. TOVA GILEAD, INC. 199 Curtis Rd. • Hewlett Neck, N.Y. 11598 Call 516-374-6148 or 800-242-TOVA 70 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1990 Dysautonomia is organized and operated for educational research purposes to maintain evaluation and treatment of afflected children. Dysautonomia Foundation Inc. 3000 Town Center, Suite 1500, Southfield, MI 48075 (313) 444-4848 rom its hills, bridges and rivers, Pittsburgh is a city of visual beau- ty and variety. It's a city of glass skyscrapers and red brick houses hugging the hill- sides; a city of parks and plazas and old buildings put to new uses. It is most distinctively a river city. It's situated at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, which join to become the Ohio River. The largest city in Western Pennsylvania — and the na- tion's largest inland port — is also a city of dramatic change. Once it was known as "Iron City" and "Smoky City," the city Charles Dickens describ- ed as "hell with the lid off." But extensive urban renewal has transformed a once grit- ty steel mill town into a clean, spacious city of parks, plazas and skyscrapers. By 1986, a Rand McNally survey of American cities named Pittsburgh as America's most liveable city. It's increasingly popular with tourists, who enjoy the river city in varied ways: They take boat rides, gaze up at the glass skyscrapers, and visit the Point to put their fingers in the water at the place where the two rivers meet. They line up to ride the popular cable railways — Pittsburgh's answer to San Francisco — which climb the steep slopes to Mount Washington. There, 1,200 feet above the downtown area, they enjoy a view of hills, rivers and bridges. This river city also has special attractions for the Jewish traveler. They include a historic synagogue with an unusual biblical garden, a modern Jewish Community Center, and an old-fashioned Jewish neighborhood on one of the city's many hills. Rodef Shalom Temple is one of the few synagogues in the United States to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is head- quarters for the oldest Jewish congregation in Western Pennsylvania, chartered in 1856, and is one of the thirty synagogues in a city with an estimated Jewish population of 45,000. The temple at 4905 Fifth Avenue is an intricate struc- ture with a huge multi- colored tile dome. When con- structed in 1906, it was the largest masonry vault struc- ture of its kind. It was built by Pittsburgh architect Henry Hornbostel, who also designed the first building for Carnegie Mellon University and the city's Soldiers and Sailors Memorial. "But this syna- gogue is one of his greatest works," says Associate Rabbi Mark Staitman. Now it's headquarters for an influential Reform con- gregation. Rodef Shalom, which became a Reform con- gregation in 1864, was one of the original founding members of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. It was Rodef Shalom which hosted the meeting of the Central Conference of American Rabbis in 1885 at which the rabbis adopted what became known as the "Pittsburgh platform." "This was a statement of the guiding rules of Reform Judaism," Rabbi Staitman said. The congregation recently