Piqua congregation

Martha Moody Jacobs

Special To The Dayton Jewish Observer

Anshe Emeth, Piqua’s Reform congregation of almost 150 years, has two big problems: people don’t know about it, and the roof leaks.

Kate Theise, who composes the Anshe Emeth newsletter, tells of moving to Troy seven years ago and asking the Dayton JCC for synagogue information.

“They didn’t even tell us this place existed!” she says. Kate’s older daughter celebrated her Bat Mitzvah at Anshe Emeth last summer; her younger daughter, age 4, is the congregation’s youngest member.

In Troy, Sidney, Greenville, and Piqua — homes of Anshe Emeth congregants — a child may be the only Jew in his or her school. The temple does outreach work with Edison State Community College students and church youth groups attending services. The Piqua newspaper also prints temple news on a regular basis.

In an attempt to reach unaffiliated Jews, the temple held a Taste of Judaism course and two one-day Hebrew courses. These events were attended solely by non-Jews.

“We have a feeling of what it is to be a minority,” says temple member Judy Feinstein. “We don’t forget who we are. The experience makes it necessary for you to be an expert, because you’re going to be asked.”

Now, Anshe Emeth is doing the asking. A roof replacement will cost $16,000.

The congregation’s president, Eileen Litchfield, has sent letters to Ohio congregations soliciting “honorary memberships” for $50 each to help fund the project.

At the beginning of February, Litchfield was optimistic: “We just received our first honorary membership yesterday,” she said.

Once the new roof is on, the temple plans to hold a Mitzvah Day when congregants will repair plaster and replace ceiling tiles.

Anshe Emeth, Hebrew for “People of Truth,” was chartered in 1858 by local Jewish businessmen; among them a clothier, a grocer, a jeweler, and the owners of the Piqua Paper Box Company.

The congregation met in a home and then office buildings until 1923, when Leo Flesh gave $18,000 to build a synagogue.

This same tan brick building with arched stained glass windows tucked between two frame houses and facing a massive stone church suffers from the leaky roof today.

The temple houses a 1926 Möller pipe organ that Litchfield says does not work well and hasn’t been played in years.

The congregation has only 24 membership units. Its cemetery, Cedar Hill, dates to 1875; 40 open plots remain there.

Anshe Emeth is served by Hebrew Union College rabbinic interns from Cincinnati. A rabbinic intern comes to the congregation for the High Holy Days and one Sabbath service a month. Most interns serve the congregation for one year; on rare occasion an intern will serve for two. An intern’s going rate is $500 per weekend, plus mileage.

The last wedding at the synagogue was in 1983, but Theise and Litchfield have hopes for the current crop of young people.

The building — a 30-mile drive north on I-75 from Dayton — appears modest but well-loved. A congregant has planted rose bushes flanking the front door. Photographs and memorial plaques line the walls.

Behind the sanctuary, there’s a classroom where Feinstein teaches religion and Hebrew twice a month to four “very motivated” students. Farther back is the social hall with wood paneling halfway up the walls, a linoleum floor, and ceiling tiles stained by water. The kitchen contains a massive cast iron stove and a plaque honoring a deceased member whose memorial fund pays for Onegs.

For a time in the 70s, the congregation subsisted on lay leadership alone, until Barbara Fried-Bollenbacher of Piqua and Max Rose of Sidney (now deceased) made the rounds rustling up new members, contacted HUC to resume sending interns, and arranged for a temporary influx of bingo money.

“Our forefathers worked really hard, and I couldn’t see it going down the drain,” says Fried-Bollenbacher of Anshe Emeth. “I did what I thought I had to.”

“Every year it’s a different experience,” says Litchfield of the rabbinic interns. “Each one teaches us something new.” The first female intern was a shock to some congregants. The temple has had a deaf intern, a Brazilian intern, an intern undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, an artist, a writer, and, perhaps most excitingly, an intern who fell for and married a congregant’s daughter. “That was a highlight,” says Feinstein.

“It’s a small, warm, welcoming congregation,” says Litchfield. Feinstein adds: “You never feel anonymous. You’re always an important person.”

© 2006 The Dayton Jewish Observer