ny, kitchen, a social room completed in the
late 1940s and a 40-by-40-foot sanctuary.
"In 1913, only one year after they
opened the building, it was already the
beginning of the end of the copper boom
and a lot of merchants saw the handwrit-
ing on the wall and moved on',' Burack
said. "But the amazing thing was the con-
tinuation of the Jewish synagogue'
Through the years, congregational
parents have run a religious school in
their homes or in the basement of the -
synagogue with help from the community,
including MTU students.
"In the early days, most families lived in
East Hancock and walked down the stairs,
down the hill to the synagogue,' Burack said.
Sheila Klatzky, whose family moved
from Duluth, Minn., to Hancock around
1950, said, "My father, Arnold Klatzky, pre-
pared the boys for their bar mitzvahs and
helped organize and taught Hebrew"
Klatzky left the U.P. when she started
college in the 1960s, reconnecting after
visits in the early 2000s. Now she is help-
ing to spearhead the Preservation Fund.
She plans to be at the celebration with her
husband, meeting up with other family
members.
Relatives of Temple Jacob's founding
families, including the Kahn family, who
are descendants of Jacob Gartner, will
attend.

Preserving The Building
Fundraising began this January with a
goal of $100,000. Included in the $80,000
currently in the fund is $25,000 that
remained in the Temple Jacob Preservation
Trust, established in 1986.
Reaching the goal will allow for the
establishment of an income-producing
fund that will meet the immediate needs
for repair and will also create a secure
financial base for the future of Temple
Jacob.
The congregation subsists on contribu-
tions and annual membership commit-
ments based on family gross income,
which does not provide for preservation.
Klatzky, who now works on fundraising
efforts from her home in White Plains,
N.Y., said the group's work began with an
assessment.
"We commissioned an engineering
study and discovered that the synagogue,
the oldest continuously active Jewish
house of worship in the Upper Peninsula
and the only active synagogue in Michigan
listed on the National Historic Register,
was badly in need of fundamental repairs
... that if neglected, would threaten its
survival: she said.
In the absence of major donors, they
sent a solicitation letter to the existing
mailing list of members and friends
of Temple Jacob. The local Centennial
Committee searched historical archives for
information on those with connections to
the synagogue.

The
Craig Fahle
Show

Temple Jacob's bimah

"Their efforts were hampered by a fire
in a downtown store basement where the
synagogue records had been kept and that
destroyed most of the synagogue's docu-
mentation:' Klatzky said. "With the help
of college students at MTU, they searched
through files of old local newspapers, cor-
respondence with former members, build-
ing records, transcripts, photo collections,
letters, emails and the Internet."
Klatzky says her reconnection with
Temple Jacob has provided "the revitaliza-
tion of my Jewish identity through the
strengthening of my connections to the
community that created and nurtured it."

Memories
A website recording remembrances of
individuals involved at Temple Jacob
includes comments from one woman who
said she will never be able to find "another
Jewish community as heimish (unpreten-
tious, Jewish flavor)."
Silvert Mawrence remembers, "It was
only when I was in services that I learned
anything. I never knew there was such a
thing as Reform Judaism and, when I did,
I embraced it."
Stanton Polin, grandson of Temple Jacob
founder Bessie Blacher, reminisced but
also sought out family information for "my
children to pass on stories and traditions
to their children."
Recently, Burack was visited by a group
from Camp Moshava in Wild Rose, Wis.
"They were amazed that this out-of-the-
way, funny little place has a synagogue,'
she said.
"While they were here, these Orthodox
campers held their afternoon prayer
service at Temple Jacob. Here I was in
this Reform synagogue that started out
Orthodox, and for the first time ever,
I sat in the balcony that once was the
Orthodox women's section.
"When we walked into the sanctuary,
I told the campers it is the house of my
spirit. The space has a special feeling, and
they told me they felt it, too."

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To donate to the Temple Jacob
Preservation Fund, go to www.
razoo.com/story/Temple-Jacob
or send a check to Temple Jacob,
P.O. Box 273, Hancock, MI 49930.
For information, call (906) 482-
3270 or email Susan Burack at
sburack@pasty.net .

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UNIVERSITY

August 9 • 2012 11

