Two Wisconsin Reform synagogues, Temple Beth El in Madison and Congregation Emanu-El of Waukesha, are observing their 75th anniversaries this year.
Both have planned several months of celebration events that begin this month.
Karyn Youso, co-chair of the group planning CEEW’s events, in a telephone interview Feb. 9 described a forthcoming program, “And the Story Continues,” scheduled for 6:30 p.m., Thursday, March 6, at the synagogue.
“We are gathering a panel of our own congregants to talk about where they or their families were at that time, and inviting them to share their stories,” she said.
Bill Lowell, another of CEEW’s anniversary co-chairs, said the panel will consist of Holocaust survivors or family members of survivors.
Youso said that a larger celebration is planned for 2 to 5:30 p.m. Sunday, April 6, at the Carroll College Stackner Ballroom in Waukesha.
She said this event, “Looking Back, Moving Forward: A Celebration of 75 Years of Jewish Community and Continuity,” will include entertainment by the Maxwell Street Klezmer Band.
Contact Mary Schuman, 262-367-6719, for further information, including ticket prices and sponsorship opportunities.
CEEW is planning events for November as well, including a documentary film about CEEW’s history and membership, and a play, “Growing up Emanu-El,” to be performed by the congregation’s Sunday School students.
Beth El is planning to start its 75th anniversary celebration with a family style congregational Shabbat dinner, 6 p.m., Friday, March 14.
Guest speaker will be Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the congregational arm of the Reform Jewish Movement in North America. Reservations are required by Thursday, March 6.
According to a news release issued by Heidi Lauhon, Beth El’s executive director, the congregation will hold three Heritage Shabbat Services. The first, on Friday, March 28, will include readings from sermons by Manfred Swarsensky (1906-1981), Beth El’s founding rabbi.
On Friday, May 2, Rabbi Ken Roseman and his wife will be guests at the second Heritage Shabbat, when the service will feature music and the prayerbook used during his tenure (1976-1985).
On Friday, July 25, Rabbi Jan Brahms and his wife will join the congregation for the third Heritage Shabbat service, using the prayerbook and music of the period of his leadership (1986-2004).
Other planned events include a concert by the Jewish rock group Dan Nichols and Eighteen on Saturday, Aug. 2 at Full Compass, 9770 Silicon Prairie Parkway in Madison; and, as the culminating event, a dinner Saturday, Nov. 15, featuring comedian Cory Kahaney.
For further information on Beth El’s 75th anniversary events, contact the synagogue, 608-238-3123.
Both congregations started out very small.
In an oral history interview archived at the Wisconsin State Historical Society, Swarsensky said Beth El had just 12 people at the beginning.
He recalled thinking to himself at the time that this was “the amount of people I would bury in Berlin in a week’s time.” As a rabbi in Berlin from 1932-1939, Swarsensky had served in synagogues with 2,000 to 3,000 congregants.
By 1950, between 150 and 200 families belonged to Beth El, Swarsensky said, and the congregation purchased land on Arbor Drive on which it constructed a building that has remained its home to the present.
Emanu-El had a similarly humble start. According to the history published on its website, 18 families met on March 12, 1939, to establish the synagogue. In this effort, they had the guidance of Rabbi Joseph Baron of Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun in Milwaukee.
In telephone interviews Feb. 10 and 14, Joe Dailey, retired professor of communication at Carroll University and CEEW’s archivist, said that although there is a lack of documentary evidence, there is strong reason to speculate that the founding families were motivated by a desire for unity.
“We can infer that in 1939, at a time when Jews were very vulnerable, there was a sense of urgency for them to try to stand together,” he said. He noted that the backgrounds of CEEW’s founding families were “very strongly European — almost all spoke with an accent, indicating that most were fairly new to English.”
For many years, CEEW lacked financial resources to support a rabbi of its own. It held monthly services conducted by different rabbis from around Wisconsin, among them Swarsensky.
The congregation moved into a converted home on Arcadian Avenue in 1941 and broke ground for the present synagogue on Moreland Boulevard in 1961, moving into it in 1962.
Growing diversity
Mark Levy co-chairs the planning of CEEW’s 75th anniversary events. He said in a telephone interview Feb. 11 that he regarded the expansion of the congregation’s building as one of the important highlights of its history.
Late in the 1990s, when membership exceeded 70 families, CEEW increased the space for its religious school, and installed a new kitchen on the lower level. And in 2004-2006, the upper level was renovated, including the creation of a new sanctuary.
Another highlight for Levy was hiring a permanent rabbi for CEEW. “When I first joined, we had a part-time rabbi, Michael Morgan, who was then dean of Jewish studies at Milwaukee Jewish Day School, and held services here twice a month,” he recalled.
Rabbi Steven Adams has been CEEW’s spiritual leader since 2000. In a written statement about how the congregation has evolved over its history, “Key Thoughts from Rabbi Steve Adams,” he states that CEEW has become “the anchor of the Waukesha Jewish community.”
According to Adams, one of the hallmarks of CEEW’s character has been its readiness to accept and welcome diversity, within the congregation itself and in the larger community outside the synagogue.
He wrote that “our Waukesha presence has helped our local community recognize that this has been and will continue to be an area with a growing level of religious and ethnic diversity. And that’s a positive development — diversity helps strengthen a community and makes it a more interesting and attractive place for people to live.”
As the number of Jews residing in Waukesha has grown — the “Jewish Community Study of Greater Milwaukee 2011” reported 17 percent of the Jewish population of Greater Milwaukee resides in Waukesha County — so has the size of CEEW.
Membership today totals approximately 120 families, with 65 students attending the congregation’s religious school. Phil Musickant became principal of the religious school in 2002.
Social action
Over the 36 years in which Swarsensky led Beth El, membership grew from 12 individuals to 400 families.
His tenure at Temple Beth El was notable for the relationships he built with clergy in Madison who were leaders of different faith groups. In his oral history, he said that “among local ministers I have found my closest friends,” noting that relationships among clergy of different faiths had been forbidden in his native Germany.
Rabbi Ken Roseman, the successor to Swarsensky, said in a telephone interview Feb. 12 that he took the congregation in new directions, noting especially the emphasis he placed upon religious education and youth activities.
In 1979, he hired an education director for Beth El, Larry Kohn, who, Roseman said, had been in special education in Madison area public schools, and “could work with kids from backgrounds deficient in Jewish studies.” Kohn has served in this role for 35 years, and is retiring this year.
Roseman’s successor, Rabbi Jan Brahms, said in an email on Feb. 14, “The most lasting and significant event that happened while I was rabbi … was the remodeling and expansion of the facility to adequately meet the needs of a continually growing congregation and Jewish community in Madison. Temple Beth El nearly doubled in size during my tenure.”
In addition, under Brahms, Beth El’s staff saw further expansion. “We engaged an invested cantor, Debbie Martin,” he said, and “we employed an administrator and program director in addition to only a director of education when I arrived.”
Rabbi Jonathan Baitch succeeded Brahms in 2005. He said in a telephone interview Feb. 13 that a hallmark of his tenure has been the significant role Beth El plays as “a voice of progressive Judaism.”
He said that “people look to us as a trendsetter — we are at the forefront of progressive causes, and we engage in social action.”
For Beth El, social action often involves partnerships with other congregations of different faiths, he said. In addition, Baitch said he has personally worked to raise awareness among the congregation’s board of trustees “that the synagogue community has a right to express its views on social policy, and that we can engage in social justice advocacy.”
Acknowledging that as a non-profit, the synagogue is barred from taking partisan positions, he said it is nevertheless at liberty to “take a stand on social justice issues — to state a moral position.”
The congregation now has more than 650 member families and is planning a further expansion and renovation of its building. Heidi Lauhon, executive director, said in a Feb. 19 email that the congregation hopes to break ground in May and have the construction finished by November.
Freelance writer Lynne Kleinman, Ph.D., is a retired teacher and journalist.
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