By Joel Magalnick, JTNews Correspondent
The brick structure on 25th Avenue in Seattle’s Central District has figured prominently in Alice Siegal’s life.
Almost 70 years ago, the former Alice Abrams remembers the brick building rising from the ground down the street from the house she had moved into when she was six years old. When it was completed in 1935, she and her brother and sister were among the Jewish children to attend the Talmud Torah there, one of the first Jewish day schools in the city.
Seven years later, she met Art Siegal on the beach at Alki. On June 14, 1942, the couple married in a room in that same building-now the pre-k room at the Islamic School of Seattle-and had their reception in the auditorium next door.
Art came from a small, overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, rural community
in Las Vegas,
New Mexico. With just a handful of Jews in town, he said he was never involved with Jewish community activities until coming to Seattle. He came to the Pacific Northwest to work for Boeing during the war years. Now 85, he said some of what he helped develop-an anti-static system that protects airplane fuselages from lightning strikes-is still in use today. After leaving Boeing, Art Siegal said he got a job in construction and spent the bulk of his career in the construction trade.
Following the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Art and Alice Siegal returned to the building, where they joined other volunteers who guarded Muslim schools and mosques in the area against possible attacks. They have been coming back ever since, attending interfaith meetings and getting to know the families and administrators personally.
The most recent event to bring Alice back to the school was for the celebration of she and Art’s 62nd wedding anniversary. The party was organized by the Islamic School staff after they learned the couple had married there.
Reminiscing about those long-past days, Alice said she had wanted a small, simple wedding, but her parents had other ideas. Marrying in the school was a compromise, she said, attended most by relatives and a few family friends.
One concession Alice said she was not prepared to make was buying a traditional white wedding dress.
“None of us had money, so I figured if I was going to spend money it was not going to be on a gown that I was never going to get to wear again.” Instead she was married in a powder-blue suit and hat.
Jeff Siddiqui, the president of the school, said three of the Jewish school’s alumni were able to attend the small party.
“This Islamic school has been here for 24 years now,” he said. “Now we have a Montessori day care, a pre-K, and we have a Montessori school, which means two or three grades are together, being given individual attention and helping each other come up.”
The 70 or so children attend multi-age classes, ranging from kindergarten through middle school levels-and there will be a ninth grade as well this coming fall. Arabic alphabet cards and posters decorate the rooms, along with illustrations for the other subjects students learn there. The basic education classes are held in English, with Quran instruction in Arabic. In the upper levels, they use a theme-based instruction method, folding math, science, history and the rest of the curriculum into the given theme.
The building itself has had a rich and varied history. After the school, now known as the Seattle Hebrew Academy, moved to its newly reopened historic building on Capitol Hill in the early 1970s, the property was used for a variety of purposes, including serving as a welfare office.
In 1981, the building was again filled with schoolchildren attending classes-this time under the auspices of the Islamic School of Seattle, which took it over in 1981.
Before they cut the cake, Alice told the small assembly at their anniversary party that she had grown up in the neighborhood, the child of Orthodox parents. She confided, however, that as a small businessman, her father, like many for the parents she knew then, often had to work on Saturdays.
Alice said she began to attend the Talmud Torah when she was about 11 years old.
“I remember we were very excited when it opened because the other Talmud Torah was in an old house,” she said. “I’d never been to it, but my older brother had gone there.” “My younger brother prepared for his Bar Mitzvah here,” she said.“In those days, this and Temple De Hirsch Sinai were the only significant Jewish facilities in the whole city,” Art said. “Beth Am and B’nai Torah hadn’t come into existence. The Orthodox congregations were fairly small.”
“Well, Bikur Holim was a pretty good size,” Alice interjected. “Herzl was a pretty good size.” She marveled at the fact that, although it was a relatively small community, there were a number of businesses catering to the Jewish families being supported there.
“There were three Kosher butchers on Cherry St. There was one on Yesler. And you had about three different Jewish bakers,” she said. “And all of a sudden they’re gone. If you want kosher meat, you have to go to Albertson’s or QFC. It seems so strange that the smaller Jewish community could support three kosher butcher shops.”