History
Unlike most synagogues in South Florida, we have a long history. We were founded in 1922, and have been in the same location since 1926. In some respects, the history of Temple Israel is the history of Miami.
For more than eighty-eight years, Temple Israel has been a Jewish beacon in the central city of Miami. It has had a unique role in South Florida—maverick, intelligent, progressive.
Temple Israel served the needs of Jews throughout the twentieth century, and continues to do so in the twenty-first century.
The Founding
Temple Israel groundbreaking, 137 N.E. 19th Street.
Temple Israel, South Florida’s first reform synagogue was founded in 1922 in answer to a need for less structured, less traditional services than were available at that time in Miami. Harry V. Simons served as its first president and Rabbi Joseph Jasin served until 1925 as its first religious leader. The temple’s first home was on what is now Biscayne Boulevard and N.E. 13th Street.
Within five years, with 216 member families, the congregation boasted not only a new building, but their own Rabbi. Rabbi Jacob H. Kaplan joined the temple, in 1927, at its current location (N.E. 19th Street), just a block and a half west of stylish Biscayne Boulevard. Rabbi Kaplan remained with the temple, in various capacities, until his death in 1965. His Temple Israel Scrapbooks are accessible through the University of Florida Special Collections http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/pkyonge/kaplanj.htm Colman Zwitman became the temple’s rabbi in 1936, serving until his untimely death from World War II related injuries in 1949. The synagogue’s continued growth justified the building of a religious school (named after Rabbi Zwitman), social hall in 1954 and assorted office and classroom space by 1960.
The First Golden Age
Brilliant, learned, liberal, and outspoken, Rabbi Joseph Narot became the voice of Judaism in South Florida, when he served as Temple Israel’s rabbi from 1950 until his death in 1980. Boldly speaking out for civil rights and against the Vietnam War, he encouraged his congregation to live Judaism by being actively engaged in local, national and world issues. Rabbi Narot was joined in 1952 by Temple Israel’s first cantor, the beloved Jacob Bornstein.
Rabbi Narot's 20th year in the rabbinate.
The temple became a leader in social action, hosting the first area meetings of Christian and Jewish clergy, the first formal contact between white and African American clergy, and the earliest formal encounters of Spanish-speaking and English-speaking clergy. The congregation established the first local Head Start program.
During Rabbi Narot’s tenure, Temple Israel grew to become one of America’s largest synagogues, with approximately 1,800 families, so large in fact that High Holy Day services were held off campus in the Miami Beach Convention Center.
As Temple Israel grew to greatness, so did many of its families. The temple membership rolls were and continue to be a who’s who of South Florida’s leading Jewish families.
A Retrospective
Over the decades, economically and demographically, Miami changed. New construction on islands and suburban neighborhoods as well as the greater freedom that cars provided to live away from where one worked opened up new challenges for the inner city congregation.
As early as the 1950s, the leadership of Temple Israel considered moving to the suburbs, but in a brave move, rejected that alternative. The decision to remain in the city, according to one historian*, "means significant contribution to the revitalization of the downtown area, but it runs contrary to the nationwide flight of people and religious institutions from metropolitan areas to the suburbs.”
Temple Israel’s membership declined, as Jews moved to the suburbs. Despite the efforts of distinguished clergy—including from 1985 to1996 Rabbi Rex Perlmeter (currently Rabbi for the East District for the Union for Reform Judaism), the late Rabbi Chaim Stern (editor of the Gates of Prayer reform prayer book series), Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin (currently Senior Rabbi at Temple Israel in Columbus, GA), Rabbi Jeffrey Kahn (currently of Washington, D.C.), and Cantor Rachelle Nelson (currently Cantor at Temple Beth Am in Miami)—membership fell to fewer than 400 families.
But through these difficult years, Temple Israel remained committed to the central city. In 1980 then-President Peter Bermont explained that "The inner city is the place we are. And we are what we are because of the inner city. We draw from so many constituencies. Our strength is that we have the ability to take from different areas. And, as downtown redevelops, we become the focal point of religious life." And that is where our modern story of revival and spiritual growth begins….
*" Synagogue in the Central City: Temple Israel of Greater Miami, 1922-1972, pg. 160, by Charlton W. Tebeau (University of Miami Press, 1972).
Temple Israel Today
Miami is once again a thriving, vibrant city pulsating with commerce, cool beats, and Miami Heat (and we don’t mean the outside temperatures). Temple Israel still is in the heart of the central city and provides the pulse of Jewish life downtown. Our lower east side of Miami has profited from a renaissance of redevelopment, redirection and recommitment with a vision that matches that of our congregational leaders.
Artfully designed apartment buildings and upscale condominiums have been built nearby, and Temple Israel is situated between the design district and the Adrienne Arsht Performing Arts Center located a few blocks away, aptly, on the site of Temple Israel’s home from 1922 to 1926.
Temple Israel has benefitted from the return of families to the central city. In 2002, Rabbi Mitchell Chefitz became the temple’s spiritual leader, bringing a new, rich spirituality to the temple. Currently serving as our Scholar-In-Residence, Rabbi Chefitz brings both study heaped in our rich wealth of tradition, as well as unique and out-of-the-box programming to the campus. Rabbi Jody R. Cohen, who served for ten years as the Regional Director for the Southeast Council of the Union for Reform Judaism, joined the temple as its Senior Rabbi, April 2007. Rabbi Cohen continues the temple’s tradition of commitment to inclusiveness and to social justice. Moreover, our staff, board, volunteers and members all share in a vision of Temple Israel providing a warm, welcoming spiritual home to any one searching for fulfillment, for a safe haven, or for acceptance. People with a spectrum of differences...all can find a home that creatively speaks to each one’s individual needs in our very inclusive space.
Our Architecture
Ideally it should be possible to experience holiness in a tent, a barn, a mall, or anywhere else. But a beautiful place makes it that much easier for the spirit to take wing – and Temple Israel is blessed with two such spaces.
Our historic main sanctuary, whose groundbreaking was in 1927, is the oldest sanctuary in continuous use in Florida. The architects, Robertson & Patterson, were also the architects of the building on South Beach where the Wolfsonian Museum is housed.
The original Temple Israel – a Moorish-Gothic confection of stained glass and tropical tile – is in the style popular in Miami in the 1920s. The sanctuary is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The sanctuary – named the Bertha Abess Sanctuary for the matriarch of the family that founded City National Bank - retains its historic ambience, although it has also undergone several changes over the years. Its central podium was replaced with two podia after the temple hired its first cantor in the fifties. A massive restoration (which included the establishment of a center aisle, where congregants have been known to dance during services and where we unravel the Torah on Simchat Torah) took place in the nineties.
Sophie and Nathan Gumenick chapel.
Our other worship space, the 1969 Sophie and Nathan Gumenick chapel, is completely different – experimental where the sanctuary is classic, and intimate rather than grand. (Imagine a large, luminous igloo suffused with rays of sunlight and eye-popping color, and you begin to get the idea.) Architect Kenneth Treister – who also designed the Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial and Mayfair in the Grove - grounded his conception in Torah, particularly God’s commandment in Genesis, "Let there be light." The graphic on our home page is taken from the chapel’s brilliant blue, red and purple windows.
Its architecture was the theme of a lavishly illustrated book, Chapel of Light: Jewish Ceremonial Art in the Sophie & Nathan Gumenick Chapel. Copies are available at the Temple. In April, 2003, it was also the subject of a full-length article in "House and Garden" magazine, which described the chapel as an emblem of the revitalization of the neighborhood and also of Judaism itself. "Reform Judaism is, as much as anything, a search for truths rather than a recitation of them," wrote author Beth Dunlop. "The architecture of this chapel is intended to echo that quest."
TheWallPaper.com featured Gumenick chapel within their website. See post by clicking here.
