USA: Middletown, Pennsylvania's B'nai Jacob is Small, but Still a Treasure (and tied to Pušalotas, Lithuania)

 

Middletown, PA. B'nai Jacob Synagogue, 1906. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Pusalotas, Lithuania. Former synagogue, view from southwest. (Photo: Evelina Kazakauskaitė, 2006. SLC Archives) from Synagogues of Lithuania, Vol 2, p63

Middletown, PA. B'nai Jacob Synagogue Sanctuary,1906. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Middletown, PA. B'nai Jacob Synagogue Sanctuary,1906. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

USA: Middletown, Pennsylvania's B'nai Jacob is Small, but Still a Treasure (and tied to Pušalotas, Lithuania)
by Samuel D. Gruber

[(August 26, 2015) Correction: in the first version of this post, I said that the former synagogue of Pušalotas was still used as a meat canning plant. This is not true. That function ended in the late 1980s or early 1990s, and the synagogue has been owned by the Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) Community (LJC) since 1993. Unfortunately, no use for the building has been found, and it is empty.]

(ISJM) A few months ago I had the pleasure of visiting the B'nai Jacob synagogue in Middleton, Pennsylvania, where the local Penn State University campus is located, just outside Harrisburg.  I'd known about this little gem for many years, first from a paper written by Matt Singer relating this building  to similar vernacular Gothic synagogues (you can read it here: Jewish-American Gothic Architecture), and also from Julian Preisler, who has been documenting Pennsylvania synagogues for many years. The opportunity to lecture at Penn State Harrisburg gave me a chance to visit - and I was not disappointed.  

Coincidentally for me (but as pointed out by Singer) the building bears striking formal similarities to the former Ohavi Zedek Synagogue in Burlington, Vermont, and the B'nai Abraham Synagogue of Brenham, Texas, which was recently relocated to Austin (and which will be rededicated on August 30th.  These were all Lithuanian-Jewish (Litvak) settlements, and they all seem to have drawn on similar sources and/or been inspired in similar ways by local American vernacular construction. I'm also interested in Middletown's connection to Pusalotas, Lithuania, the town from which most of the Middletown Jewish settlers emigrated ca. 1900, and  whose Jewish population was massacred in 1941, but where the former synagogue still stands, and has been returned to the Jewish Community of Lithuania. My new position as a member of the Commission for the Issues Concerning the Jewish History and Culture has me wondering if something more should or could  be done there. 

Services are still held in Middletown once a month (but of course, no more in Pusalotas) and the small B'nai Jacob congregation works hard to maintain the building and its fittings. Three ark curtains have been saved and conserved, and these are hung in protective frames in the social hall downstairs.

 

Middletown, PA. B'nai Jacob Synagogue, 1906. One of three parochot (ark curtains) is preserved in the social hall. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

The congregation is presently raising funds to restore the exterior entrance stairs which are deteriorating, and bowing away from the building.  More than half of the estimated $25,000 needs has been raised.  I encourage readers to make an online contribution - of any size - via the GoFundMe webpage, here.

You can read about the Middletown synagogue here:  Historic B'nai Jacob Synagogue, with a detailed description and analysis of the building by Matt Singer here:  B'NAI JACOB BUILDING ANALYSIS.

Middletown, PA. B'nai Jacob Synagogue, 1906. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

B'nai Jacob is a simple but refined one story brick structure, with tall narrow front, side and back windows with  pointed arches. It is only becasue of these windows that the synagogues is sometimes referred to as "Gothic" in style.  At the rear of the building, one can see a protrusion that represents the Ark, which has been erected to have a depth far greater than the Ark wall thickness. This arrangement is not unknown elsewhere in Europe and America, but neither is it common (I promise to write more about this feature, variations of which can be found in late 19th century synagogues such the former Adas Israel in Washington and in some of the simple synagogues of the agricultural communities of Southern New Jersey (Alliance, Brotmanville, etc.). 

Middletown, PA. B'nai Jacob Synagogue, 1906. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

The sanctuary is reached by outside steps and the entire sanctuary is raised on a half story, allowing light into a a full basement used for community space. These exterior stairs, as previously, mentioned, need repair.

The interior arrangement is traditional, with a central bimah and seating for women in a gallery built above the entrance vestibule, reached by a dogleg stair the opens off the vestibule, before the sanctuary door. The synagogue walls are painted white - but given the colors and decorative patterns we have found in recent years beneath modern whitewash, I wonder of the original appearance wasn't a bit less austere.  But certainly the congregation here decided against the richly painted interiors of many contemporary immigrant shuls.The ark employs classical elements combined with the a pair of traditional (East Europe) carved wooden lions supporting a painted Decalogue (Tablets with Ten Commandments) set on top. The pews of B'nai Jacob were obtained from an earlier version of the Dauphin County Courthouse.

Middletown, PA. B'nai Jacob Synagogue, 1906. View from women's gallery.  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Middletown, PA. B'nai Jacob Synagogue, 1906. View from women's gallery. showing central bimah.  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

 Middletown, PA. B'nai Jacob Synagogue, 1906. Women's gallery.  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Middletown, PA. B'nai Jacob Synagogue, 1906. View to women's gallery.  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Middletown, PA. B'nai Jacob Synagogue, 1906. View of ceiling with large chandelier and of the lions and Decalogue over the Ark.  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Middletown, PA. B'nai Jacob Synagogue, 1906. View of pews towards the Ark.  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

We know something about the origins of the Jewish settlers of Middletown, and the founders of B'nai Jacob, who according to Singer:

 "were, overwhelmingly, Lithuanian Jewish immigrants. Oral lore notes that the founders were not only all, or nearly all, Lithuanian, but were from small, rural villages in the vicinity of the city of Panevezys in north-central Lithuania. Records available through JewishGen, a Jewish genealogy website, confirm this assertion. An addendum to the synagogue’s National Register of Historic Places Inventory—Nomination Form (B’nai Jacob was granted historic status in 1985), states that B’nai Jacob’s members were, primarily, from the village of Pusalotas in north-central Lithuania. 

These Lithuanian Jews were adventurous enough to immigrate to the United States and settle in an obscure, rural town (in these characteristics, of course, Middletown was similar to the villages from which B’nai Jacob’s founders hailed) with a minuscule Jewish community and no Jewish institutions prior to the building of the synagogue. Nonetheless, they maintained traditional Eastern European Orthodox practice, which included living within walking distance of a synagogue, as traditional Jewish law forbids traveling by vehicle on the Sabbath."

Pusalotas, Lithuania. Former synagogue, view from northwest. (Photo: Evelina Kazakauskaitė, 2006. SLC Archives) from Synagogues of Lithuania, Vol 2.

Interestingly, Pušalotas had a brick synagogue - but this was built until 1913, seven years after the one in Middletown, after Pusalotas's wooden synagogue burned down. The building survives and its present condition is described in detail in Synagogues of Lithuania, Vol. 2, pp 61-65. Funds for this synagogue were originally sent from immigrants in America to Rueven Brog, the grandfather of Israeli politician and former commander-in chief Ehud Barak (b. 1942).  Brog, who was a pharmacist. In 1912, he received the money from the United States but thieves broke into his house, killed Reuven and his wife Frida, wounded their eldest son and stole the money. Nevertheless, a synagogue was built near the market square, on the opposite side of the Catholic church in 1913.12.  Howard Margol  and Willie Mann (who was born in Pushelat in 1913), and present a history of the Jewish settlement in the town and include this about the synagogue:

The main centre of activity was the shul - a solid two-storey brick building which was the heart of the shtetl. This was the new shul that was completed in 1913 after the wooden synagogue burned down. The main hall had two large tiled stoves that were always lit during winter, as it was extremely cold. This hall was only used on Shabbat and Yomtov. For daily prayers we used a small room heated in winter with ready-cut wooden logs - there was always a tall stack of them in the open yard - as Lithuania had no coal mines. Prayers were held three times a day and we boys were expected to davven every day, which we duly did. The shul had no toilets, as there was no running water in the shtetl and no indoor plumbing. 

Most of the exterior of the substantial synagogue remains intact, as can be seen in photos taken in 2006. According to the authors of Synagogues of Lithuania, the synagogue interior was destroyed when the building to industrial purposes after the Holocaust. In the decades since World War II it has housed a dairy, a mill, and then a meat preserving plant. The property was returned to the Lithuanian Jewish Community, and in 2005 a memorial plaque for the victims of the Holocaust was set up on the southern wall of the former synagogue. To my knowledge no plans have been made to renovate or restore the building for any specific Jewish purpose.

 Pusalotas, Lithuania. Former synagogue, memorial plaque on the southern façade. (Photo: Evelina Kazakauskaitė, 2006. SLC Archives), from Synagogues of Lithuania, Vol 2., p64.