The majestic wooden pews at Shearith Israel have been replaced. What memories! Those pews are where so many tzadikim once sat, all of them now in the Olam Ha’emes: Rabbi Shimon Schwab, Rabbi Mendel Feldman, Mr. Jakob Gradman, Mr. Kurt Flamm, Abraham Morganroth, Bernard Yaffe, chazan sheni Louis Miller, Dr. Kurt Raab, Wolfgang Meyer, brothers Henry P. and Alvin Cohen, Chazan Baum, Eugene Kaufman, Birenbaum brothers Herbert and Adolf, Reverend Moshe Yitzchak Herman, Mr. Albert Leiter, Kurt Hess, the Steinharter brothers Yaakov and Meir, Lou Wise, Milton Schuster, Fred Schlossberg, Herbert Froelich, Felix Bondi, Jacob Lustman, Josh Greenspon, William Looban, Ellis Brusowankin, Leon Rubenstein, Joe Yudin, Merrill Lehman, Ruby Friedman, Richard Zurndorfer, the Lasson brothers Nelson and Milton, Oscar Gundelsheimer, PW Gundelheimer, Mr. Saul Raniker, Zelig Cohn, Richard Strauss, Jerry Senker, Herman Goldberg, Chester Siegel, Jacob Siegel, Ben Adler, Fritz Brafman and Ernie Brafman, the Taragin brothers William and OD, Dr. Gershon Kranzler, Martin Bamberger, Ari Neuberger, Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg, and Harry Wolpert. They occupied those pews, just to mention a few. They are all gone, and now, so are the pews where they davened for so many years.
Baltimore, my shtetl,
is changing. I am one of the few alive today who davened at both the McCulloh Street and Glen Avenue branches
of Shearith Israel. I still remember the copper spittoons on the floor between
many pews in the Mcculloh Street shul, which was in the North Avenue
neighborhood. In accordance with halacha, the shul was sold to the Masonic
Lodge with a contractual prohibition for the building to ever become a church, chas v’shalom.
That contract sits in a drawer at the Masonic Lodge and was shown to visitors
on one occasion.
To be totally fair, I and those who are having a
hard time seeing the pews retired no longer daven at Shearith Israel and may
not even be members. Rav Hopfer, who is head of our city’s Vaad Harabbonim and a wonderful Rav, leads a very special, holy,
and wonderful kehillah. Still, it is
difficult for me and so many old timers to see such changes. Life will, b”H, go on, I know. May the pews go
straight to Shamayim, where all those
mentioned above will once again sit in them before Hakodosh Baruch Hu. Let’s hope that, in
their zechus, the erlichkeit (uprightness) and traditions
of those who preceded us will make Baltimore the makom Torah and bastion
of avodah and chesed that it always was and should continue to b
