Temple Anshe Emeth

The second oldest Jewish congregation in the Miami Valley, Temple Anshe Emeth in Piqua, will celebrate its 150th anniversary on May 10. With a name meaning People of Truth in Hebrew, Anshe Emeth is housed in a small, tan brick building built and funded in 1923 by congregant Leo Flesh, whose father, Henry, had been one of the synagogue’s founders. Leo Flesh, who also funded Piqua’s Flesh Library, made his fortune as owner of the Atlas Underwear Company.

Eileen Litchfield, Anshe Emeth’s president for the last eight years, says the temple’s sanctuary “can get in 120 with folding chairs,” recalling a recent Bat Mitzvah.

Anshe Emeth was organized in March 1858 and became one of the first congregations in the country to join the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, now the Union for Reform Judaism.

The founders of the synagogue were merchants and businessmen such as the Lewis family, which owned the Piqua Paper Box Company.

The founders lived in Piqua, Sidney, and Troy. Originally, services were held at the home of Moses Friedlich on the High Holy Days and the first Saturday of each new moon.

Congregants Judy Feinstein (L) and Eileen Litchfield

Over the temple’s long history, membership has stayed at about 25 families, most from neighboring cities. A rabbinic intern from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati leads services monthly and on the High Holy Days. Volunteer educator Judy Feinstein leads its religious school once a month. Anshe Emeth’s heyday was probably in the 1950s, when B’nai Brith and the Sisterhood Sewing Circle both met weekly.

The temple recently underwent a roof renovation and a ceiling repair financed by members, Jewish well-wishers, and “pass-the-plate” collections at local churches.

At the 150th celebration open house, visitors may view treasurer reports from the 1920s with listings of money given to a Jewish orphan asylum and to schnorrers (panhandlers); a United Jewish Appeal poster from 1953; and photos of the Anshe Emeth youth group in the 60s. This was the “Jewish Jetsons” era, according to one former member: “We gave out Sputnik pencil sharpeners.”

Piqua was the home of David Urbansky, the only known Jewish soldier from Ohio to receive the Medal of Honor for bravery during the Civil War. Born in Poland, he came to New York state as a teenager. Following his wedding in the 1860s, he and his bride,

Medal of Honor recipient David Urbansky

Rachel, came to Piqua and established a clothing business. He died in 1897 and was buried at Anshe Emeth’s cemetery, Cedar Hill, which the temple had opened in 1858. When Rachel died in 1914 in Cincinnati, their children had Urbansky’s remains moved to the city and reinterred next to her plot.

Cedar Hill still has an occasional burial. Once remote, it now sits at the edge of a Cracker Barrel parking lot, shielded by evergreens.

“Some of the stones are so old it’s hard to identify them,” Litchfield notes, “but we have a map, and a cemetery fund to keep the place mowed in the summer.”

Temple member Barbara Freed-Bollenbacher is collecting memories from former and current congregants. Many reflect the realities of being a Jew — perhaps a Jew in an intermarried family — in a small, quite Christian town.

Clara Barr is 90 years old and still lives in Piqua. Her father ran a junkyard, and she recalls hearing him called a “junkyard Jew.”

Jane Albright Green, who in young adulthood sang professionally, attended the local Presbyterian church as a child.

“I was interested in music and there was hardly any music at Anshe Emeth.” Green says. “I joined the confirmation class there (at the church) but when it came time to be confirmed, I remembered my mother was Jewish and I said, ‘I can’t do this,’ and I didn’t.”

Later, Jane married a Jewish New Yorker who moved to Piqua.

Jane’s daughter, Victoria Green Miller, says, “I think I started Sunday school when I was 4 or 5, but I got into so much trouble one day, when I said I couldn’t wait for it to end so I could go to see Santa…I really didn’t know that Jewish people didn’t have Santa…Many people in Piqua used to refer to the temple as the Jewish church.”

As congregant Dr. Joe Shuchat, now deceased, says in a recorded interview, “You’ve got to be a Jew and a community person also.”

He recalls his favorite Anshe Emeth celebration: the dedication, in 1958, of a Torah purchased with $1,000 bequeathed to the temple by Leo Flesh’s non-Jewish widow, Gertrude Smith Flesh. “It was standing room only…Jews and non-Jews…Everyone thought it was wonderful.”

Temple Anshe Emeth’s 150th Anniversary…Saturday, May 10, 320 Caldwell St., Piqua. Commemorative service at 10 a.m. with a sermon by Dr. Gary Zola, executive director, Jacob Rader Marcus Center of American Jewish Archives, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. HUC-JIR Rabbinic Intern Ari Rosenberg will lead the service. The congregation will host an open house from 2-4 p.m. Call Eileen Litchfield at 937-547-0092.