USA: In Livingston, New Jersey, an Iconic Modern Synagogue is Closed; Sold to Church

Livingston, New Jersey. Temple Emanu-El of West Essex

Peter Blake and Julian Neski, architects, 1962. Photo:
Contemporary American Synagogue Architecture (Jewish Museum, 1963)

Livingston, New Jersey. Temple Emanu-El of West Essex

Peter Blake and Julian Neski, architects, 1962. Photo:
Contemporary American Synagogue Architecture (Jewish Museum, 1963)

Livingston, New Jersey. Temple Emanu-El of West Essex

Peter Blake and Julian Neski, architects, 1962. Photo: Courtesy Julian Preisler.

USA: In Livingston, New Jersey, an Iconic Modern Synagogue is Closed; Sold to Church
by Samuel D. Gruber

While I was preparing a recent paper on the popularity of the tent motif in mid-century modern synagogue architecture, I learned that Temple Emanu-El, a well-known example of the form in Livingston, New Jersey, recently closed its doors for Jewish worship and was sold to a church. As with the recent closure of Temple Emanu-El in East Meadow, New York, this is another sign of generational shift in Jewish demographics and religious affiliation, as well as in architectural style and popular taste. Both synagogues were featured in the influential exhibition and catalogue Contemporary American Synagogue Architecture held at the Jewish Museum in New York in 1963 and curated by the then (largely unknown) Richard Meier.

In the catalog, architects Peter Blake and Julian Neski wrote of their design for Livingston's Temple Emanu-El : “…we thought of the form as a derivation of the ancient Sanctuary-Tent. The shape is dominant, pierced with light, and finished with rich, darkly stained wood….” 

Temple Emanuel in Livingston has a distinctive bifurcated roof of thin gently bent and upward sweeping wooden sheets that gently meet across a line of open light at the apex. Light comes in from above, at the "crease" of the tent, and also pours in from front and back gables of clear glass. 

Several synagogues included in the 1963 exhibit expressed tent-like elements in their roof designs, or recalled in their support structure the modular framework of the Mishkhan, as described in Exodus. 

Since the 1950s, references to more canopies of all sorts become increasingly common in synagogue architecture.  In the face of the destruction of European communities and synagogues in the Holocaust, architects sought designs reflective of the Jewish exodus, exile and diaspora (dispersion), and which gave physical form to the now obvious transient nature of Jewish settlement and security – even in the seemingly safe sanctuary of the United States. The synagogue-tent connection was reinvented, or at least revived architecturally, as Jews searched for an alternative to seemingly failed Classical and Medieval historicist and assimilationist forms.

After World War II, increasingly the tent form replaced the dome as the most popular expressive synagogue roof element. Blown and formed concrete, formed-plywood and other laminates, and even plastic, allowed architects Percival Goodman, Frank Lloyd Wright, Lew Davis and Sam Brody, Minoru Yamasaki, Peter Blake and Julius Noski, Sydney Eisenshtat, Kivett and Myers, William Bernoudy, and others, to experiment with the tent for new expressive forms. Many of these work survive - but more and more are being significantly altered, or destroyed outright.

Livingston, New Jersey. Temple Emanu-El of West Essex

Peter Blake and Julian Neski, architects, 1962. Photo: Courtesy Julian Preisler

The building is also important as the work of two notable modern architects. Blake and Neski worked together to design many elegant modern houses that had light footprints on the landscape. 

Peter Blake (1920 - 2006) was a Jewish refugee from Germany who became as a writer and editor one of the leading intellectual and critical lights of American post-war modernism. From his obituary (Dec 6, 2006) in the New York Times:

Born into a Jewish family in Berlin in 1920 as Peter Jost Blach, Mr. Blake was sent by his parents to school in England after the Nazis came to power. He attended schools in London until World War II and then moved to the United States, where he enrolled in the architecture school at the University of Pennsylvania and worked briefly for the architect Louis Kahn. He became a citizen in 1944 and changed his name to Blake. By then he had struck up an acquaintance with a wide and often rambunctious circle of artists, architects and writers, from Pollock to Charles Eames.

In 1948, he was named curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art, where he remained for two years, writing a monograph on the architect Marcel Breuer. Books exploring the legacy of Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson followed.From 1965 to 1972, he was the editor in chief of Architectural Forum (now defunct), which attracted a wide following with its articles on the home-building industry as well as architectural currents. Mr. Blake then founded his own magazine, Architecture Plus, where he worked until 1975.

In the world of synagogue architecture, Blake is also widely known for co-editing the 1957 book An American Synagogue For Today And Tomorrow: A Guide Book To Synagogue Design And Construction published by the Union of American Hebrew congregations.

Temple Emanu-El of West Essex in Livingston, New Jersey, was founded in 1955. The congregation closed in 2018, and merged with Temple Sinai in Summit, NJ. The synagogue  was sold and is now the Living Stone Christian Church. The former  school buildings have become part of a Mandarin (Chinese) and Spanish language immersion center.

The rise and fall of the congregation is indicative of general trends in many American suburban congregations founded in the post World War II period. Begun by 11 families seeking a Reform Jewish service in a growing suburb, by 1955 it had expanded to 56 families and by 1961 ground was  broken for the new sanctuary. Th choice of Blake and Neski demonstrates the congregations tastes - and ambition. Tastes and needs change. There was a major expansion in 2004 prior to the congregation's 50th anniversary, including a new main entrance, office space, the library, and the Holocaust Remembrance Center, and Early Childhood Center.

Livingston, New Jersey. Temple Emanu-El of West Essex. Peter Blake and Julian Neski, architects, after 2010 renovation by David and Michelle Plachte-Zuieback. Photo: Scott Brody.

Livingston, New Jersey. Temple Emanu-El of West Essex

Peter Blake and Julian Neski, architects, after 2010 renovation by David and Michelle Plachte-Zuieback. Photo:
Plachte-Zuieback website.

And then in 2010-11 the sanctuary was remodeled in accord with present-day tastes in comfort and decoration. David and Michelle Plachte-Zuieback, leading designers of contemporary synagogue stained glass, created stained glass  a new this sanctuary installation for the Ark wall that consisted of a new maple and cherry wood Aron Ha-kodesh with stained glass doors as well as two stained glass artificially-lit sidelights. At some point is appears the congregation introduced flexible seating, and also strong horizontal interior cornices below the "tent" that changed the spatial dynamic.

These changes were not, however, enough to sustain the congregation. In 2017 it was announced that the congregation would close and then sell its facility due to financial hardship.

I can only speculate on the reasons for the hardship - but they are not difficult to surmise. Jewish populations are declining in post-war Northern suburban suburbs - due to the death or  movement to the south and west by the founding generation, and a low Jewish birth rate and movement away from suburbs by younger generations (in sharp contrast to many urban Orthodox communities). This is combined overall with less synagogue affiliation - even among self-identifying Jews - and amidst competition (and duplication of resources) between surviving synagogues. Combined with this are the often ballooning costs of maintenance, and heat and cooling of mid-century buildings, where often the original material are reaching the end of their anticipated lifespans. There are changing congregational needs that are sometimes met with building new structures and changes in taste which are sometimes met with remodeling.  But even these fixes are often not enough to sustain small congregations which - without financial angels or a large endowment - often exist year-to-year on the edge of a financial cliff, depending on ever-declining dues against ever-increasing costs. Frist building needs are neglected. Then staffs are cut. Then a congregation is forced to close.

These forces have been recognized for at least twenty years, but we are still in the midst of a major synagogue shake-up which means fewer synagogues in the north, with new - but usually smaller - synagogue buildings erected in the south, southwest, and west. Modern-era synagogues in New York New Jersey and other states are at risk - and if we cannot save them, we must at least fully document them while they are in use.