Local News

Olympia temple moves to new home

By Jim Stevenson, Special to JTNews

      The crowd in the

      street outside Olympia’s small wooden synagogue swelled to

      500, and two motorcycle policeman lumbered up on their

      machines as Temple Beth Hatfiloh’s rabbi and board members

      appeared at the doorway, Torahs in their arms. Then the

      members of the congregation broke into song.

     

      It was moving day

      at Temple Beth Hatfiloh.

     

      Small portable

      chuppot moved up to offer symbolic protection from the

      profane outside world, Rabbi Seth Goldstein chiseled the

      mezuzah from the Temple’s doorposts, while a klezmer band

      struck up a tune, and the ritual procession danced off to its

      new home three blocks away.

     

      The new brick

      synagogue building, former home of a Christian Science church,

      was purchased by TBH in mid-2003, but the 160-family

      congregation did not take possession until this summer, when

      the top priorities were to repair the building’s roof and

      complete some interior renovation. Other work – including

      earthquake retrofitting – will be completed over time.

     

      Reflecting on the

      move, Rabbi Goldstein remembered that Hillel once described

      God as ready to come to our house if we come to His house.

     

      Synagogues are

      "places to connect…but God enters only if we enter because the

      people create the holiness.…By dwelling together in the

      community we cause the divine presence," he said. "Only if

      we come will God be with us. That is our commitment."

     

      The former TBH

      synagogue dates back to 1938 and was not unique historically,

      since it was built on a model used in many other Western

      communities. But several surviving members of the founding

      families remember the old building’s construction, and more

      than 30 members of three founding families – the Beans, the

      Hollanders and the Goldbergs – were on hand for the Sept. 12

      ceremonies.

     

      Longtime temple

      member Ben Bean, a 15-year-old boy at the time the old temple

      was built, remembered the pride he and others in Olympia’s

      Jewish community felt in their new home.

     

      "But this new

      building has meant the same excitement we felt 66 years ago,"

      Bean said.

     

      As the Torahs were

      installed in their new ark, Rabbi Goldstein proclaimed the

      transfer complete.

     

      In conclusion, he

      noted that the temple’s name means "house of prayer."

     

     

      "May we also hope

      that our new home will be a beit midrash – a house of

      study – a beit sefer, a house of knowledge, beit

      kehilah, a house for the community, and beit am, a

      house of the people."

     

      Speakers at the

      ceremony, which preceded an open house in the new building,

      included Olympia Mayor Mark Foutch, Jewish Reconstructionist

      Federation Regional Director Devorah Servi, and Virginia

      Britt, a member of the First Church of Christ Scientist.

     

     

      "I don’t believe I

      can remember a more lively, active group in this building,"

      she said after members of the congregation sang and

      chain-danced through the sanctuary as the Torahs were brought

      into the new synagogue.

     

      Mayor Foutch, who

      is not Jewish, said he was uplifted by the spirit of community

      but was struck most of all when "two black-uniformed and

      booted motorcycle cops rode up to us, and it was a sign of

      safety and reassurance and equal protection under the law –

      and why not? That may be easy to say in Olympia; in other

      times and other places it was not and is not a given – and we

      should celebrate that!"

     

      In a mitzvah-significant

      coda to the September 12 ceremonies, TBH President Bernie

      Friedman and Bean presented one of the temple’s four Torahs –

      a gift from the Bean family years ago – to the small Olympic

      B’nai Shalom havurah in Port Angeles.

     

      Phyllis Darling,

      B’nai Shalom President, thanked the Olympia congregation.

     

     

      "We know it is

      possible to have a temple without a building, but you cannot

      have a temple without a Torah," she said.

     

      Temple Beth

      Hatfiloh held erev Rosh Hashanah services in its new

      home three days later.