Founding documents
During a sorely needed cleaning of the storage room at LHJC in 2005, founding documents of LHJC were located.
Most were art markup form. However, the original document linking LHJC to the Conservative Movement was also located.
Please click on the below to view the documents
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Submitted by Founding Members Anita and Larry Holtzberg
As a belated New Years gift, I thought this would be an appropriate time to write something I been asked to do for a very long time… so here it is.
Please forgive me if I refer to LHJC in comparison to my children. In essence that is how I feel towards our temple - that being the move of a mother and child.
LHJC was conceived as a thought on our dinning room table during Rosh Hashanah dinner in the fall of 1970.
Seven months prior, Larry and I had moved to Ringwood, much for the same reasons young couples still come to our area. Good value for the price of a home, the beauty, sale, good schools, plenty for the kids to do and a nice place to live.
Marc was born that September. With Larry being a pharmacist, once of the first couples to befriend us was Marvin and Audrey Gastman. Marvin was one of the only two doctors in town. Audrey had three small boys at the same time and would tell us horrible stories of the lack of car pools and how difficult it was to go wither “over the mountain” to Oakland or behind school busses on Ringwood Ave. to get her kids from our area to Hebrew school in Pompton. Some things never change.
After the conversation went around the table a few times, we really started to get excited. Why not? The seed was planted! And so we sent forth on our mission. Buena Vista Dr. had a nickname of Mt. Sinai since 4 Jewish families lived on the hill. In order from the bottom, Seymour and Lee Feigan, Norman and Sandy Cohen, Larry and Anita Holtzberg, and Sid and Kathy Kleinman. To this, add Marvin and Audrey Gastman, and a family my dad had introduced us to (they did business together) Jules and Carolee Mendelson. This made the original six families. It is not difficult to figure out that the Mendelsons and Holtzbergs were the only remaining of the six. Now it is just us.
Marvin went though his patient files and Larry went thought the prescription files (we owned Skyline pharmacy at the time) and together we sat and made a list of “who knew who was Jewish or what names sounded Jewish. Carolee went through the sales office of some builder’s lists for more names.
Within a few months we had formed a list of 36 families. We had several meetings but now were ready for the Big ONE. It was held at the Feigans home. The house is now Toli and Polinas home, past members, on the corner of Hilltop and Buena Vista Dr.
Now, what to call our synagogue? That question went around the room many times. Finally, Allan Ostrow stood up and said “How about Lakeland Hills Jewish Center?” Yes, we all agreed, we liked it. So LHJC had its “Baby Naming”. Next was where? One of Marvin’s patients was Father Angelis DeMarco of St. Catherine’s in Ringwood. What exactly took place here I am not quite sure, but the basement of the Friary became our first home. I guess even by our existence we were already starting our ecumenical goal.
Purim 1971 was our first Friday night service. H. B. Chester, then known as Howie, built us an ark. Marvin and Audrey donated the first ark cover, and table cover in memory of his mother. The feeling that filled the room that night was of sheer pleasure and great accomplishment.
Quite often, Father Angeles would come down and share our oneg Shabbat. One time, he was our “Guest Rabbi”.
From time to time, we would contact United Synagogue for guest rabbis. They sent rabbi Rothman to help celebrate our first service. On a regular basis, Marvin Gastman, Norma, Cohen, Jules Mendelson, H.B. Chester or anyone capable of doing so, conducted services. We stayed at St. Catherine’s though the first winter of the oil crisis (remember those long lines?) We left because the church needed every room. Even the Jews of Ringwood had to wander. This time to Carltondale Rd. to be taken in by Ben Frauman’s predecessor, Rev. Ron Stewart. Late in 1975, Jules and I formed a search committee to look for available as well as affordable property to build out “shul”.
During the cold winter months of 1975-1976, with me being quite pregnant, Jules and I schlepped though property adjacent to the cemetery on Ringwood Ave, a house on Skylands Rd, property in Stonetown, and land between the Pancake House and Krausers (corner of Ringwood Ave. and Skyline Lake Dr.)
Jules finally heard about a piece of property on the corner of Cannonball Rd and Conklintown Rd, owned by builder Jack Levkowitz. This was perfect! Little by little, the pieces fell into place. Temple, property, and the desire to build us a “shul”. Buddy Klugman arranged the financing. We floated bonds among ourselves and so breaking ground began.
Deb was born on March 11, 1976. Her baby naming was one of the last official ceremonies held at the Community Church. LHJC was dedicated the week before Rosh Hashanah in 1976, with ribbon cutting, press, Congressman, town, county and state officials and all.
We were all so very proud. Finally, a “home” of our own. It really resembled a oneroom schoolhouse. Would you believe, the original temple only went to the columns. The bathroom and kitchen remained the same, and the hall and storeroom was the classroom. We used folding chairs on the asphalt tiled floors.
Within a short period of time, we realized our temple was too small and so back to the drawing board we went. Plans were drawn for the enlargement, refinancing was arranged and the structure, as you see it today, is the result. However, the folding chairs, wood paneling and the floor remained for many years. That is how it looked for Debbie’s Nat Mitzvah in May of 1989.
Barbara Sperber and Audrey Goldsten were already busy at work planning our “face lift”. The alteration was finished the night before, Jen and Carol Sheldon, mother and daughter, celebrated their B’not Mitzvah on September 16, 1989.
We might not be the biggest or the fanciest, but what we have is VERY SPECIAL – ONE ANOTHER.
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