For Openers
:a
A Plum Of A Temple
an"cha
K now © 2000
Cincinnati
istoric Plum Street Temple still resonates with the
teachings of its founder, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise.
By Goldfein
Born in Central Europe, Rabbi Wise pursued his
hile the day, month and year are all mea-
vision of a liberal style of Judaism in 19th-century
surements of the movements of the earth
America. The Reform movement is his legacy.
and moon, which measurement of time
Plum Street Temple — now part of the
comes from Hebrew scriptures?
two-campus, 1,400-family Isaac M. Wise
Temple — is a tribute to a rabbi who had a
z pup I si.advqD
knack for embracing non-traditional Jews.
SISQUDD uz pawdosap
laarn au) :dantsuy
Last Shabbat, I visited Plum Street Temple
with the board of Temple Israel in West
Bloomfield.
Rabbi Wise came to Cincinnati, then
America's fourth-largest city in the 1850s.
Plum Street Temple opened in 1866.
Hyperinflation after the Civil War, coupled
"Look, son," said a father named Stocker,
with a scarcity, of labor and materials, fueled
"You may be the best playing soccer;
Rabbi Isaac the temple's $243,000 construction cost.
But everyone thinks
Mayer Wise
"To build such an expensive temple for
Your sportsmanship stinks.
only 200 families was either a statement of
You've turned into one gahntser knocker?*
tremendous chutzpah or of great hope and confidence in a new
•
golden age of Jewry" the temple's Senior Rabbi Lewis Kamrass
— Martha Jo Fleischmann
told us.
The temple sports Mideastern and European influences, plus
* big shot; show-off
Gothic, Islamic and Moorish accents. Renovations continue, but
the hauntingly beautiful, 1,150-seat sanctuary has the original
wood pews, plank floors, ceiling domes, chandeliers, candelabra,
stained-glass windows and Holy Ark.
The original organ, silent since the Shabbat before Rosh
Hashanah in 1994, would cost about $350,000 to repair.
Temple Israel's Jennifer Tisdale is a second-year rabbinic stu-
"We can't rebuild Russian Jewry without you."
dent at Cincinnati's Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of
— Adolph Shayevich, Orthodox chief rabbi of Russia,
Religion. Rabbi Wise founded the Reform movement's school of
speaking to Reform Jewish leaders at a Moscow gather-
higher learning in 1875.
ing to celebrate 10 years of "official" progressive
Through Plum Street Temple, home to HUC-JIR graduations,
Judaism in the former Soviet Union, home to 90
Tisdale said she feels "very grounded in Jewish continuity as part
Reform congregations.
of the same Reform rabbinic chain that goes back to Rabbi Wise."
Cincinnati's Jewish community is 23,000 — 75 percent of it
"Then I looked closely at the monkeys' faces. They
Reform. The four largest Reform temples operate a common high
were scrunched up, lined and wrinkled. Old men's
school.
faces. And the black oval on the tops of their heads
What Rabbi Wise built endures in Plum Street Temple's splen-
looked remarkably familiar. Like a cap, a skullcap.
dor and spirituality. A small outdoor marker says it aptly: "May
That's it, they looked like Jewish yarmulkes."
these stones be a memorial." ❑
— Gerry Volgenau, Detroit Free Press travel writer, on
— Robert A. Sklar, editor
his visit to Quepos, Costa Rica.
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