Our Jewish heritage

Editorial

The building that housed the Valley's first synagogue is safe in the hands of our Jewish community.

The Culver Street synagogue, home to Temple Beth Israel from 1920-1949, will be renamed the Cutler Plotkin Jewish Heritage Center.

The Arizona Jewish Historical Society, having financed the purchase of the synagogue complex, will now raise funds for its renovation.

As Temple Beth Israel, the complex was a focal point of Jewish worship, study and celebration for nearly three decades. As the Heritage Center, it will be not a museum dedicated solely to the past but rather a living, breathing testament to the Valley's burgeoning Jewish community, a venue for lifecycle events and a valued component of Phoenix's cultural sites.

The Heritage Center will sponsor a communal Sukkot celebration, 2:30-4:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 13. The sukkah, a temporary booth, is a reminder of our nomadic past, when the Israelites traveled through the Sinai wilderness to the Promised Land. Sukkot is also our annual reminder of the transitory and temporary nature of life.

If not for the efforts of the AJHS, the Culver Street Synagogue surely would have suffered the fate of a temporary structure, much like a sukkah, ultimately demolished by developers.

The Heritage Center complex will help ensure the permanence of the Valley's Jewish community by documenting our past, enriching our present and preserving our future.

To experience the Heritage Center, we can attend the Oct. 13 Sukkot celebration. To ensure its enduring presence, we can make a financial contribution toward its restoration and renovation. For information, call AJHS, 602-241-7870.

Ongoing education

A deep visceral divide separates Jews and Messianic Jews. Jews do not view Messianic Jews as Jewish and consider their liturgy and rituals to be deceptive means of evangelism.

Recently, The Arizona Republic listed services at a Messianic Jewish congregation, Beth Yachad, alongside two area synagogues, under "Jewish High Holiday Services."

A call to the Republic revealed that if a house of worship self-identifies as "Jewish," editors categorize it as Jewish, notwithstanding the fact that Messianic "Judaism" is not Judaism at all but evangelical Christianity.

As our Valley grows increasingly ethnically, religiously and racially diverse, all residents must become better educated about our diversity. We challenge editors at The Arizona Republic to help lead the way.

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