Har Sinai Hebrew Congregation

 Har Sinai Temple, Trenton, New Jersey

Figure 1 First Location on State St.

 

  Trenton of the Revolution was a small of a hundred houses — a typical Colonial village in its pursuits and interests, dreaming away the years on the pleasant coastal plain. Half a century later, it caught up in a significant industrial and commercial growth surge. Linked at last to the two great population centers to the north and south by rail, water, road business, and extensive enterprise, Trenton was an attractive center to locate. By 1857, the city's population was 15,000. Steel, rubber, and pottery were on the threshold of becoming significant industries. Retail trade flourished, and there was activity in real estate development. Trenton goods began to flow out to the nation's markets.

This growth had been noticed in New York and Philadelphia, whose Jewish communities were almost two centuries old. Slowly and later, at an increased pace, Jews came to Trenton to work, live, and prosper. They found it a pleasant and friendly city and settled down and took deep root, unlike the solitary traveler or trader of an earlier day who passed through on his way to the larger centers. Quite soon, in the ages-long tradition of their people, they added their congregation to the 18 churches already here to complete Trenton's representation of all the major creeds.

But first, there was the Har Sinai Cemetery Association, which formed

November 19, 1857, 11 men met in the home of Morris Singer. They were (besides Singer): Marcus Marx, Julius Schloss, Issac Wymann, lgnatz Frankenstein, Lazarus Gottheim, Isaac Singer, Joseph Rice, Ephraim Kaufman, Marcus Aaron and Gustavus Cane.

Figure 2 Cemetery 1856

 

Friends in close contact with one another daily because their homes and small shops were dotted about the center of the city, they decided the time had come to buy a place for the inevitable day of death. The necessary funds were raised by subscription, and eventually, a tract at the corner of Liberty and Vroom Streets was bought. It served as Har Sinai's first cemetery for several generations.

Har Sinai Hebrew Congregation was an outgrowth of the Cemetery Association. Before its formation, religious services were held in private homes and rented quarters. A September 1858 newspaper item tells us that 52 persons attended New Year's services in Temperance Hall at the southeast corner of Broad and Front Streets. Formal services, regularly conducted, began with the formation of Har Sinai Hebrew Congregation in 1860. They were held in the old Chancery Building, which stood on the present Trenton Trust Company site at West State Street and Chancery Lane.

The congregation had decided upon incorporation at a meeting held July 22, 1860, the trustees named at that time being Simon Kahnweiler, Isaac Wymann, Henry Shoninger, Herman Rosenbaum, Marcus Aaron, Leon Kahnweiler, and David Manko, most of them clothing merchants.

The first members were German and services were conducted in German and Hebrew for many years only.

Figure 3 1865 Stockton St.

 

Kahnweiler, probably the first Jew of prominence in his day, had been interested in several ventures: a brickyard, vinegar works, grocery store, and real estate. He was Har Sinai's first president and, for some years, exercised considerable influence in the affairs of the small congregation. Kahnweiler purchased a little brick chapel between Academy and Perry from the Lutherans on the west side of North Montgomery Street. It was refitted as a temple and dedicated with appropriate ceremonies on March 23, 1866. Judge David Naar, an outstanding figure of the time, made the dedicatory address. He had been mayor of Elizabeth, Common Pleas Judge of Essex County, a member of the State Constitution of 1844, owner and publisher of the influential Daily True American, and a powerful figure in state Democratic councils. Rabbi Isaac Lesser, who, with Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, then shared the leadership of American Jewry, also spoke at the dedication.

 

Despite the challenges, the congregation persevered. Kahnweiler had never deeded the Temple to the congregation, and there has been debate among the members. Matters climaxed on March 16, 1872, when the little house of worship was sold at a public auction. 

Figure 5 News Article, 1922

A quarter of a century passed, and the congregation again felt the need for expansion, mainly to accommodate the growing enrollment of the religious school. In 1925, Har Sinai purchased a lot on Bellevue Avenue and erected the present structure, where Louis S. Kaplan was an architect. The dedication ceremonies, which took place September 12 through 16, 1930, were a grand affair, featuring addresses by Rabbi Louis Woolsey of Philadelphia, Dr. Julian Morgenstern, President of the Hebrew Union College, Rabbis Sidney Tedeschi, and Alexander Lyons of Brooklyn. The late Julius Schafer was then president, and Rabbi Abraham Holtzberg drifted in the sixth year of his local rabbinate. The future was far from bright, but one member was not disheartened. Mrs. Toretta Kaufman, mother of Amelia Block and S.E. Kaufman, who later took their place as two strong pillars of the Temple (Kaufman was one of Trenton's leading merchants in the first decades of the 20th Century), set out to save the temple building. Through her tireless efforts, she collected sufficient funds so that by the autumn of 1872, the congregation again owned the Montgomery Street property. The most significant contributor was Joseph Rice, a leading merchant and one of Trenton's most respected citizens, who was very active in temple affairs and made up the balance needed after Mrs. Kaufman had collected as much as possible.

Har Sinai sold its Temple to Bayard Post, No.8, G.A.R., in July 1903. In the same year, it purchased a lot at the southwest corner of Front and Stockton Streets and erected its second house of worship there. The Temple was dedicated on the evening of October 7, 1904. Soon after, the congregation adopted Reform Judaism and engaged Rabbi Nathan Stern as its first reform rabbi. English replaced German in the

services. Many of Har Sinai's older members in this Temple were Bar Mitzvahs, confirmed, and married. A memorable event was the address delivered by Governor Woodrow Wilson on November 24, 1910.

In February 1922, the Board of Trustees voted to join the Union of American Hebrew Congregation, a significant step that officially made Har Sinai a Reform congregation. This union, founded in 1873, aimed to promote the principles of Reform Judaism and provide a platform for congregations to share resources and ideas.

 

Figure 6 1928 Bellevue Ave

   

 

Although Har Sinai opened its new temple doors into the depression years of the 1930s, the congregation

managed to carry on through the selfless sacrifice of its rabbis, officers, and membership. The Temple was completely free of debt when it burned its mortgage on the evening of November 4, 1945.

 

Rabbi Holtzberg's spiritual

Leadership continued over the enriching span of 25 years, during which time men like Julius Schafer and Dr. J.M. Schildkraut carried Har Sinai from strength to strength. With the death of Rabbi Holtzberg and Rabbi Joshua 0, Haberman came from Buffalo in 1951 to take his place in the pulpit.

 

 Figure 7 - Interior

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rabbi Haberman's rabbinate for the next eighteen years encompassed an extensive series of innovations, achievements, and activities that carried Har Sinai through a period of unprecedented growth during the fifties and sixties.

In 1953, Cantor Marshall M. Glatzer joined the Temple staff, significantly enriching the worship services and Har Sinai's life.

In 1957, Har Sinai celebrated its Centennial Year—"more than just another celebration," as Centennial chairman Sidney Goldmann said in this personal message, but "an occasion for spiritual rededication, a renewal of one's abiding faith in Judaism." The first months of the centennial were featured by outstanding congregational events —a congregational dinner, "The Bible in Song" " an evening of Sacred Music with Temple's choir joined by those of four other churches, notable rabbis invited to share the pulpit. The second half of the centennial was highlighted by a Trenton Symphony concert honoring Har Sinai and the March 22, 1958, civic banquet in which leaders of the Jewish and general community joined the congregation to mark the 100th anniversary.

 

When Rabbi Haberman answered a call to serve as Rabbi for Washington Hebrew Congregation in Washington, D.C., in 1969, Har Sinai called to its pulpit Rabbi Bernard Perelmuter from Erie, Pennsylvania, who served Har Sinai

Until June 1982, in the later part of this period, the Board of Trustees voted to acquire a tract beyond West Trenton close to Route 1-95, with plans to erect a new Temple there. However, the cost of this project became beyond the Temple's means, and the project was abandoned.

In June 1982, Har Sinai welcomed Rabbi David J. Gelfand to its pulpit from Temple Beth El in Great Neck, New York. His energy and warmth, concern with social issues, belief in the traditional role of rabbi as teacher of Torah, and work with young people and in contemporary Jewish education hold great promises for Har Sinai as it marks its 125th year.