As Rabbi Robert Scheinberg shuffled through the lobby of the United Synagogue of Hoboken Wednesday afternoon, he gently pushed aside a number of strollers that had gathered. After they were rearranged, he proudly pointed towards a plaque on the wall that marked Oct. 10, 1905 as the day that German-Jewish immigrants first established the Star of Israel congregation.
Without saying a word, the rabbi had made eloquent statements about the synagogue’s past and future. It’s a place that today is alive with families, but it is also a congregation that honors its past as its centennial approaches.
The centennial celebration has been marked by special concerts, lectures, and, most notably, the beginning of the restoration of the Star of Israel building on lower Park Avenue.
The “Star of Israel” was the original name of this congregation until it became the United Synagogue in the 1940s.
First the history
At the turn of the century, Hoboken was a bustling commercial port and home to a thriving immigrant community that operated local shops and supported several synagogues. It was a period of tremendous growth and expansion for the Jewish population, due primarily to the massive migration of Eastern European Jews to the United States.
Between 1880 and the mid-1920s, the Jewish population of the United States exploded from about a quarter of a million to more than 4.2 million.
The Star of Israel congregation was founded on Oct. 10, 1905. Germans Jews who settled in Hoboken were seeking to escape religious persecution. For some, immigration was a means of escaping from the constant wars that had plagued and fractured the German Empire.
But by mid-century in Hoboken, the piers became obsolete, factories left town, and the middle class migrated to the suburbs. Most of the Jewish population left town, said Scheinberg.
“Things really bottomed out in the 1970s,” said Scheinberg, who has been the spiritual leader of the United Synagogue since 1997.
He added that by the 1970s, the dwindling Jewish population lacked the funds to maintain the Star of Israel building and shuttered it except for the high holy days. Things got so bad that a real estate consultant recommended selling the building to ease the financial strain, but community leaders rejected the idea. “We are very fortunate that those members had the vision to hold on to such a gem,” Scheinberg said.
A revitalization
The synagogue’s recovery very much mirrors Hoboken’s. The city also was emerging from the painful 1970s, which was a period where industry left, poverty was commonplace, and much of the city was blighted.
But in the early 1980s, a few parents, a part-time rabbi, and a recent college graduate began a learning center to educate a handful of children. At the same time, real estate prices began creep higher, and after decades of decline, young people began moving in.
Today, over 150 children attend classes in a learning center run by a director that works together with the rabbi and a staff of teachers.
An explosion in the number of new families that really became noticeable in the late 1990s. About this time, the synagogue, motivated by the number of families interested in early childhood education, established a preschool. In just four years, preschool has grown to 80 children and a long waiting list.
To provide classrooms for the learning center and preschool, the congregation constructed a building adjacent to the Star of Israel in 2000.
“The people who remember the 1970s and 1980s have told me that there were virtually no kids around,” Scheinberg said. “Now, several days a week our lobby is converted into a stroller parking lot.”
In the past decade, he said, many young adults have been shunning a move to suburbs. Instead, they have stayed in Hoboken’s urban village to raise their family.
The future
Today, the United Synagogue of Hoboken has over 225 households as members, said Scheinberg. Many of them are families and young adults.
To celebrate the centennial, they have brought in noted music groups like the Yiddish music kings the Klezmatics, and Israeli folk-rock star David Broza. There have also been Sunday-brunch lectures, which at one point featured former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky. There was also a six-installment film series that ran from last January through this June.
But the central focus of the centennial is the impending restoration of the synagogue’s historic Star of Israel building on Park Avenue.
“The building was finished in 1915 and is showing its age,” said Scheinberg. “What we are undertaking is but a structural and aesthetic restoration.”
The work could take up to two years to complete. During much of the construction, the synagogue will hold services at the Demarest School.
The restoration will include an infrastructure modernization, including new wiring and plumbing, a new roof, air conditioning, a new kitchen, and the installation of historical stained glass. Also included will be the restoration of the sanctuary, lobby, social hall, and stairways.
According to Scheinberg, they have retained the firm of Alexander Gorlin Architects. The firm, which specializes in synagogue restoration, has confirmed that the Star of Israel building as an example of European synagogue architecture with antecedents found in Budapest, Frankfurt and Turin.
According to Architectural Digest, Gorlin is one of the Top 100 Architects in the United States.
“It’s very exciting to have an architect who has worked on so many notable buildings, and so many notable synagogues,” Scheinberg noted.