A look back at Hebrew Orthodox Congregation
From the South Bend Tribune, Sunday, May 11, 1986
Hebrew Orthodox Congregation rises from ashes like phoenix
Resurgence celebrated on 75th anniversary; membership although dominated by youth still hews to old traditions
By Carla Johnson
South Bend Tribune, Sunday, May 11, 1986
“When a fire boarded up Hebrew Orthodox Congregation in 1970, after five decades in the old Jewish section of South Bend, most people felt the synagogue had been dealt its final blow,” says Louis Sandock, the congregation’s current administrator.
Sandock cites the passing of the “old-timers,” the original congregation members, and the younger generations’ movement toward “the glitter of the American way, away from Orthodoxy” as causes of the congregation’s dark times in the 1960s.
After the fire, only the tenacity of a handful of Orthodox Jews prevented the closing of Hebrew Orthodox Congregation. Most of the Jewish community felt it was senseless to build a new synagogue. According to Sandock, the usual response was, “Can’t you see there’s no market for Orthodoxy here?”
Dissenters couldn’t have been more wrong. Next Sunday, Hebrew Orthodox Congregation will kick off several months of celebration with its Diamond Jubilee Dinner Banquet. The congregation is now 75 years old and experiencing so much growth that the membership has almost outgrown the synagogue’s facilities at 3207 S. High St. in South Bend.
Rabbi Yisrael Gettinger, the congregation’s youthful spiritual leader, credits the saving of the synagogue to “just a few people who had that beautiful stubborn quality of the Jew not to let go.” Rabbi Gettinger himself is also to be credited, along with Sandock, for collecting old photographs, documents, artifacts and information on the history of the congregation.
A DOCUMENTARY slide-show presentation will highlight the jubilee banquet. Produced under the direction of the Hebrew Orthodox Historical Preservation Committee, the show includes old photographs of past rabbis, cantors and members.
Much new information concerning the early years of the development of the synagogue has also been gleaned from recent efforts in translating the congregation’s “minutes,” dating back to 1911, from the original Yiddish. Rabbi Gettinger, who says he has always had an affinity for history, discovered the minutes book. It is written in the fine hand of Jacob Rimer, recording secretary.
The congregation already was an organized group with officers in 1911. It had actually started some years before when Orthodox Jews came to South Bend from Europe and got together to fulfill their obligation in prayer. “It was not a social organization,” Sandock stresses. “Hebrew Orthodox, by its name, was involved in Orthodox service.”
Rabbi Gettinger also points out that most of South Bend’s Jewish community came here around 1909 and 1910, largely from Eastern Europe — Poland and Russia — to escape European oppression. Jewish immigration to the United States was prominent during the period 1880 to 1920, the rabbi says.
The South Bend Jewish community grew around the Taylor and William St. area. Sons of Israel was operating on William Street several years before the founding of Hebrew Orthodox Congregation, and the neighborhood also included a kosher meat market and Hebrew Institute, an after-school religious facility and social center.
The minutes book indicates that the original congregation was formed out of the needs of a minyan, the 10 adult men essential for the conducting of services. The minyan needed a place to gather, so they initially met in a second-floor room over a meat market at 720 W. Division St—now Western Ave. Louis Feldman, the community’s shocket (ritual slaughterer), had a private entrance to the second floor where he made room available to the minyan.
“THE GROUP could have been meeting several years before 1911,” Sandock notes. “But we do know, from the minutes, that by 1911 the group had problems, income, expenses. Everyone lived within two or three blocks of each other.” Solomon Gaiba was synagogue president. The first cantor was Max Altfeld, who had come to South Bend in 1909 or 1910.
A rabbi in those days was not essential for services, but was “a legal authority,” according to Sandock. The minutes indicate that in 1914 the group began negotiations to hire its first rabbi.
Rabbi Shlomo Zlattolov was hired for $50 a year. He served as rabbi until the late 1920s when he was replaced by Rabbi Abraham Shur.
The congregation had a number of rabbis during the 1930s and 1940s: Irving Meisel, Dov Ber Ostrinsky, Aaron M. Rine and Leonard Oschry, who officiated as rabbi until 1950. More recent rabbis include Irving L. Goldman, Lipman Rubinowitz, Marvin J. Sugarman and Alfred Fruchter, who served until the synagogue caught fire.
The congregation then had a year without a rabbi before Rabbi Victor Amster took over in 1971, followed by Rabbi Moishe Toiv from 1977 to 1980. Rabbi Gettinger is now in his sixth year of service.
Among the rabbis, Rabbi Oshry has perhaps been the most famous, having become well-known in the Jewish world as a translator.
In 1916 the group purchased their first building, a house bought for the purpose of prayer meetings, on Taylor Street. By 1922 the house was moved onto adjacent property and the Taylor Street synagogue was built in its place. The “Taylor Street shul” was “beautiful inside in the European tradition,” Sandock says. The congregation then experienced a period of growth in the 1930s “with a very substantial membership, many names which are still familiar locally.”
DURING these years of strong membership, which Rabbi Gettinger calls the congregation’s “golden years,” members played a dominant role in the leadership of the Jewish community. Membership included around 200 families.
The archives reveal that the congregation membership was involved in important projects outside the synagogue itself. For instance, Hebrew Orthodox Congregation was responsible for the repair of the Sons of Israel mikvah in the late 1940s. Congregation members took an active role in organizing the Jewish cemetery which still draws 90 percent of the Jewish burial
Rabbi Gettinger points out that the congregation has always adhered to the religious ritual brought from Europe by its original minyan. “To this day, the pattern of service is unchanged,” he says. “The one change that has taken place is that sermons are no longer in Yiddish but in English,” though the rest of the service is still in Hebrew. The change in the sermon took place in the 1930s.
“Jewish people have always had a very strong attachment to their religion,” Rabbi Gettinger says. “There will always be Orthodox Jews.” He does acknowledge, however, what he calls the “dark ages” of Hebrew Orthodox Congregation.
During the 1960s there was a nationwide falling away from Orthodoxy. “A lot of children were grown up, married, and did not want to maintain ties to the synagogue,” Rabbi Gettinger says. In South Bend, “the Jewish houses and tenements in the old neighborhood were abandoned when the Jewish community had the opportunity to improve themselves economically. Most moved out of the neighborhood, and a certain psychological tie was broken.”
He also notes that “being more modem at that time meant being less religious.” Hebrew Orthodox membership dropped to 28 families by 1970 when the synagogue was burned in suspected arson.
“THOUGH THE BUILDING did not burn to the ground, it was badly damaged,” Gettinger says. “There was talk about what to do. The burned building was...
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I used to live in the same neighborhood where the Hebrew Orthodox Congregation is located. I had no idea of the rich historical documentation that surrounds the Jewish Community in St. Joseph County, Indiana.
Thank you ! :)