Silver celebration

Temple Chai reaches 25 years

TAMI BICKLEY
Associate Editor

Temple Chai's sanctuary soars above the bimah, in background.

Photo by Mark Moore

One of the largest and most innovative Reform synagogues in the Valley exists today because a little girl once wanted to attend school with her neighborhood friends.

It was 1975, and 4-year-old Susan Max begged her mother, Judi, to send her to public school with her pals who lived on her street. But Judi Max, who chose a Jewish education for her daughter, instead drove Susan back and forth from the family's northeast Phoenix home to kindergarten classes at Temple Beth Israel, in central Phoenix, then a 40-minute drive.

Ultimately, sensitive to her daughter's wishes to go to school with friends, Judi Max telephoned "every Jewish name" in the area and built an index-card database of families interested in starting a synagogue there.

The concept for Temple Chai was born.

Twenty-five years after a committed group of Jews - tired of wandering the city streets to worship and study in churches, schools and hotels - rallied to establish their own synagogue, Temple Chai is marking its silver anniversary.

The 1,000-plus family congregation, now housed in an expansive, contemporary facility, flourishes in the present - while its leaders and members remember its roots and focus on the future.

This weekend, March 16-18, the temple will celebrate at a Friday evening Kabbalat Shabbat service followed by dinner and a program; "A Celebration in Silver" Saturday evening cocktail hour, Havdalah service and dinner and dancing; Sunday morning golf outing; and Sunday afternoon family picnic for members.

Those who have been with Temple Chai since the beginning say that, while they are excited about the weekend events and the temple's goals and prospects for the future, they will never forget its meager beginnings and the perseverance and dedication of creating their "home away from home."

In the beginning
When enough people had expressed interest in starting a synagogue in Northeast Phoenix, Judi Max and her husband, Alan, called a meeting in their home. Participants at the 1976 gathering formed a steering committee, with Judi as chairwoman, and devised a plan.

First, the temple needed a name. One woman at the meeting, Adrienne Feuer, counting 18 people in the room, proposed the name "Chai" (Hebrew for "life" and "18"), and those present agreed, Max remembers.

Founders also talked about educational aspects of the synagogue.

"The majority of people were interested in having a synagogue for their young children," says Max, who is still a Chai member. "(Families with) teenagers felt they had to join a synagogue that was (established) and could meet their needs."

Because educating their children was a priority, steering committee members - considered Temple Chai founders - decided to begin a religious school immediately, Max recalls. She was put in charge as director of the school. About 90 kids soon filled the initial signup list.

But there were problems. "We didn't have a curriculum, we didn't have teachers, we didn't have a building," says Max. "When I look back at it now, it was absurd."

In August, with the help of the late Sylvia Plotkin, wife of Rabbi Emeritus Albert Plotkin of Temple Beth Israel in Scottsdale, Max obtained books. She also struck a Sunday rent deal with Shea Middle School in Phoenix. And Max and others in the community offered to help teach the children.

That fall, not only did religious school classes begin, but Temple Chai also held its first High Holiday services, with a student rabbi from California leading Rosh Hashana services. Rabbi David Pinkwasser, who later became spiritual leader of Temple Emanuel of Tempe, led Chai's first Yom Kippur services.

Laypeople, visiting rabbis and student rabbis led occasional Shabbat services and milestone events.

Meanwhile, Chai's members continued to run the religious school and hold Shabbat services wherever they could find space.

Torah and a home
Temple Chai's first Torah - still frequently used - was more than 110 years old in 1976 when the temple acquired it. Originating in Czechoslovakia, the Torah - called the Holocaust Torah - had been seized by the Nazis during World War II and stored with hundreds of other Torahs to be placed in a museum Adolf Hitler had planned to establish. When the war was over, Allies gave the Torahs and other Jewish artifacts to the Westminster Synagogue in England, which later restored Chai's Holocaust Torah.

Rabbi William Berk, Chai's spiritual leader since 1983, explains the Torah is on a 99-year lease from the European Jewish community, and "for all practical purposes, it belongs to the temple."

Congregant Jerry Nevins built a portable ark that originally housed the Torah. "For us it was, 'Have Torah, will travel,' " says Max.

The temple indeed traveled. Congregants held services in members' backyards, in a church, and in a storefront at 32nd Street and Greenway Avenue. While in the storefront, the temple hired its first rabbi, Samuel Seicol.

Meanwhile, Mike Horewitch, president of the temple, was determined to help the fledgling congregation find a permanent home.

"The board had set parameters as to where we wanted to locate. The guidelines were between Seventh Street and Seventh Avenue and between Bell (Road) and Shea (Boulevard)," recalls Horewitch.

"One Sunday I was driving around and saw this 'For Sale' sign ... on a barn with five acres."

Horewitch visited a nearby realty office and bid on the property in the name of Temple Chai. Horewitch offered a small deposit toward the $200,000 price and a promise that if the congregation approved the purchase, it would fund a full down payment within 30 days.

When the board proposed the site to the congregation, the reaction was less than encouraging.

"They said we were crazy," says Horewitch. "They said we didn't have enough members or enough money to build it. There was a big argument, and a five or six-hour congregational meeting about it. Then (the board) said we could build it ourselves, and of course that went over like a lead balloon."

Ultimately, the proposal passed, and the board began raising funds for the down payment. Much of the money came from "wealthy congregants," says Horewitch. One enticement was to guarantee donors of a certain level a 10-year temple membership.

The temple collected its last $2,500 within 30 minutes of the down payment deadline, Horewitch recalls.

If I had a hammer...
The land on which the barn stood is located on the south side of Marilyn Avenue just west of Tatum Boulevard. Residents of homes to the north of the property objected to building a temple there, citing traffic congestion on the quiet suburban street and glare from headlights in the future temple parking lot.

Horewitch says the board promised the neighbors and the city of Phoenix it would handle the traffic situation and plant oleanders around the parking lot to block the headlights. It has kept both promises, he says.

Meanwhile, a congregation construction committee formed the "Chai Rise Construction Company" and obtained a building permit and a license to purchase building materials wholesale, says Horewitch.

"And then, in May (of 1982), we just started building. We were there every night, and congregants would come out on the weekends and help," he remembers. Volunteers shoveled manure out of the barn and removed the barn hitching posts.

During the building process, Lee Goldberg succeeded Horewitch as president. Seicol also left, and once again the temple searched for a rabbi. Max asked Rabbi Morris Kertzer (now deceased), who lived in the Valley, to be interim rabbi.

"I took him out to the temple in August when they were building," says Max. "He saw women hanging off the roof, shingling the roof in 100-degree heat. He was so impressed to see all these people," that he agreed to do it.

Once construction was complete, another $50,000 was raised to build an oneg (gathering) room and an office.

The original barn structure, plus the oneg room and office, still stand today.

New rabbi, new beginning
As Kertzer led temple services in the new building, a committee conducted a nationwide search for a permanent rabbi and soon discovered William Berk.

At age 34, Berk was a rabbi in Palo Alto, Calif., at "one of the wealthiest synagogues in the country," he says. He found Temple Chai quite a contrast.

"I came to a place that a few months earlier had been a horse barn, had 60 to 80 families, was pretty small, and a lot of people had said we would never make it."

So why did he leave a long-established congregation for Temple Chai?

"I wanted to be in a place I could grow with, a place where as I grew, the place would have potential to grow," he explains.

And over the years, the growth has been more drastic than he had ever anticipated.

"I figured someday we'd have 200 or 300 families ... and now we have 1,050. I never set out to build a big synagogue. I set out to build a good synagogue," he says. He believes part of what makes a "good synagogue" is a devoted group of leaders who work as a team and create an environment that is warm and welcoming for congregants.

Chai's core professionals include Berk, Associate Rabbi Lisa Tzur, Cantor Sharona Feller, Executive Director Marlyne Freedman and Director of Education Ava Keenan.

"We have created an environment that is very interesting and compelling," adds Berk. "We help each other, and we cover for each other."

Milestone events
Ask a veteran Temple Chai member to name cherished memories of the synagogue, and the congregant may backtrack to 1991. It was the year Chai held the first High Holiday services in its own sanctuary. No more wandering from hotels to churches and to schools to pray; congregants were now at home.

"It was thrilling. I was choked up, and it was just wonderful," Berk says of the first services in the Chai sanctuary.

"It was a feeling that the community had really accomplished something, and we had something that is going to be there forever," says Horewitch.

Fund raising for the sanctuary and adjacent Mollen Social Hall had begun in 1987, with the leadership of congregants Marty Mollen and Joel Sherman, who recognized that Chai's growing congregation was becoming too large for the former barn. The pair spearheaded a capital campaign committee that raised nearly $2 million.

At the same time, programs for fourth-12th grade youths were expanded and the temple initiated adult education classes, including adult b'nai mitzvah classes and advanced studies; Boy Scouts; Tot Shabbat and more.

"There is so much innovative programming," says Karen Goodman, a member of the temple for 10 years and president since January. "Our whole focus is (serving) the needs within the community." On that note, she mentions that Chai is the only Valley temple to offer a program to people with special needs. A class for children with a wide range of disabilities began in 1985, including helping several become b'nai mitzvah.

"We've actually had people move to Phoenix in order to have their special needs kids enrolled in our religious school," Berk points out. "It's the little things that really give this place its character."

He points out the Shalom Center for healing as another Chai milestone, "an incredible institution that has been at the forefront of the Jewish healing movement."

Also, a Mitzvah Garden has enabled members to grow food to take to residents at the Kivel Campus of Care.

Berk notes two current efforts to enhance Chai's education programs: transforming the child center into a family center and building a family school where parents can study while their children are also in class.

About 95 percent of young people remain involved at the temple following bar and bat mitzvah, which "is unbelievable," says Berk. The temple offers them the opportunity to teach younger students and continue their Jewish education.

Most recently, groundbreaking took place for the Jess Schwartz Community High School, to be located on the grounds of Temple Chai until it moves to the new Ina Levine Jewish Community Campus on Sweetwater Avenue and Scottsdale Road in several years. Keenan says, when that happens, Chai will use the building for educational purposes.

The Chai community
Kabbalat Shabbat at Chai is one of many ways the temple seeks to bring the community together, say its leaders. The Friday evening services, distinguished by uplifting music and all-inclusive atmosphere, attract some 500 people on any given Shabbat.

"We're a community that cares about our members. ... I know a lot of people who feel like this is their family," says Goodman.

Congregants and leaders alike agree that with more than 1,000 families, it is a challenge to maintain the tight-knit, community feeling Chai had at its inception in 1976. However, the temple "works very hard at maintaining (that homegrown feeling)," says Berk. For example, when people join the temple, Berk invites them to his home, and the following year, Feller invites them to her home.

"We try to do things to bring them into our 'family,' but it's obviously a struggle as we get bigger," Berk says.

One of Marlyne Freedman's favorite sayings about Chai is that leaders strive to "create smaller circles within the larger circle."

The next 25 years
If Chai's rich history - filled with unbridled determination to bring Judaism and Jewish community to Northeast Phoenix - built the foundation for the temple its members know today, its future is equally important, notes Berk. And at this weekend's anniversary events, Berk plans to focus on where Chai is going more than where it has been.

"I am going to talk about our dreams and where we're headed," he says.

The future will include the addition of a third rabbi, Peter Levi, who comes from Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles. Levi will begin work as full-time associate rabbi in July, when both Tzur and Feller begin working part-time in order to spend more time with their families.

Mostly, the temple will strive to continue building on its formula for success both in its programming and in its relationship with the Jewish community, says Horewitch, who notes that the standards set by the founders and builders have not changed.

"Our (original) goal was to provide a different type of synagogue - one that would be different in terms of friendliness, and one that would offer an extended family," explains Horewitch.

"Temple Chai has remained that way (over the years), and I think it will remain that way (in) the future."

Events details

Temple Chai will celebrate its 25th anniversary with the following events:

5:30 p.m. Friday, March 16 - Shabbat Nosh followed by 6:15 p.m. Kabbalat Shabbat service and community dinner at the temple, 4645 E. Marilyn Road, Phoenix. Cost: $9.50 adults; $5.50 children 12 and under. Limited seating.
6 p.m. Saturday, March 17 - "A Celebration in Silver," dinner and dancing. Cost: $125 per person.
7 a.m. Sunday, March 18 - Golf tournament at Silverado Golf Club. Continental breakfast, 18-hole tournament and awards luncheon. Cost: $125 per person.
Noon-4 p.m. Sunday, March 18 - B'Yachad Family Picnic. Music, dancing, rides, games. Cost: $10 per family in advance; $12 at gate.

To attend any of the events, and for location information, call the temple at 602-971-1234.

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