The Synagogues of New York's Lower East Side: A Retrospective and Contemporary View, 2nd Edition

11. Community Synagogue (now The Sixth Street Community Synagogue)

11. community synagogue (Now The Sixth Street Community Synagogue/Max D. Raiskin Center) 325 East 6th Street (between First and Second Avenues) today’s sixth street community synagogue/Max D. RaiskinCenteroccupiesoneofthemorearchitecturallysigni ficant buildings in the East Village section of the Lower East Side, having purchased its house of worship in 1940— much later than most Lower East Side congregations. The previous owner, St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, constructed the building in 1857—serving the German immigrants in this neighborhood (then nicknamed “Kleindeutschland ” or “Little Germany”) for over eighty years beforeitsmoveuptownintoYorkvilleat339East84thStreet where it is now known as Zion-St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church. The substantial Greek Revival building adds grace and charmtotheareawithitscolumnedexpansivebrickfaçade, enhancedbycolumnsandatriangularpediment—adeparture from the frequently narrow tenement style synagogue buildings. Curiously for such a noteworthy structure, no record has been found to identify the architect. In 1940, thirteen people — each of whom donated $1,000—purchasedtheemptybuildingtocreatetheCommunity Synagogue. Remarkably, eleven of the thirteen purchaserswerewomenwhosefamiliesweremostlyassociated with prosperous neighborhood businesses, including catering and hardware. Mrs. Abraham Meller, possibly the first woman ever to head a Jewish congregation, told reporters the organization intended to “use the building fora modern Jewish temple and a social, athletic, and cultural centerfor 85 18317-Wolfe_Synagogues 9/24/12 12:05 PM Page 85 the Jewish youth of the neighborhood.” The group, which had two hundred members at the time, then initiated a $25,000 renovation. In its earliest days, the Community Synagogue was a prestigious congregation; by 1950 its membership included sixteenjudges.Whilethecongregationheldcompletelytraditional services and hired Modern Orthodox rabbis, its knowledgeablelayleadershipwassomewhatlessobservant than typical fora LowerEast Side shul and operated more or less along the lines of “Conservadox” practice. Today’s congregation and services are Modern Orthodox. The shul remains an active and viable institution — offeringservices365daysayearalongwithavarietyofpublicprogramsincludingweeklyTorahstudies ,specialholiday celebrations, a regularschedule of music concerts, and frequent film screenings. Weekly Friday night services have, in the recent past, been alternately co-sponsored with New York University’s Bronfman Center. In addition, Kabbalah Shabbos services are sometimes offered with students from New York University and CooperUnion. The current rabbi, Greg Wall, who has served since 2009, adds considerable life and enthusiasm to the building’s activities through his talent as a jazz musician and a “star” on the tenorsax. In 1965, Congregation Czernowitz-Bukovina merged withtheCommunitySynagogueandtheformerCzernowitzBukovina Shul, at 224 East 5th Street, now houses the Association for the Help of Retarded Children (AHRC). The mergerofthetwocongregationsisindicatedbythepresence ofabronzeplaqueonthebackwallofthemainsanctuaryof the Sixth Street Community Synagogue. Othersmallernearby synagogues merged with the Community Synagogue as well. The most noticeable congregational change occurred with the arrival of members from theEastSideHebrewInstitute(ESHI)in1975.Theshulthen becameknownbythedualnameoftheCommunitySynagogue andMaxD.RaiskinCenter,sinceRabbiRaiskinwastheformer principalandfounderofthepopularESHIdayschool.Since 1910, the East Side Hebrew Institute had been a traditional Jewish day school at the corner of East 8th Street and Avenue B and was historically among the majorinstitutions of the Jewish East Side. As the Jewish community dwindled, the ESHI day school eventually merged with uptown Park East Synagogue’s day school. Today, that school is known as the Park East Day School. With the move of the day school, the formercongregants of ESHI joined Community Synagogue. St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, which was housed forgenerations in what would become Community Synagogue, experienced a tragedy at the turn of the twentieth century from which it neverreally everfully recovered. OnJune15,1904,thecongregationofSt.Mark’sEvangelical Lutheran Church became the unfortunate protagonist in the worst inland watercatastrophe in American history. On that day, St. Mark’s had sponsored a Sunday School picnic to Locust Grove, a popularpicnic resort overlooking Long Island Sound. The Ladies’ Aid Society (Frauenhilfsverein) chartered the General Slocum excursion steamer for the group of1,300people—mostlywomenandchildren.Asthe steamshipsaileduptheEastRivertothetreacherouswaters of the Hell Gate (where the East River meets Long Island Sound), the General Slocum caught fire and quickly became engulfed in flames. The captain ordered the blazing ship beached on the Bronx shore. Instead, the ship ran aground on nearby North BrotherIsland and, within a matterof min86 the archive synagogues 18317-Wolfe_Synagogues 9/24/12 12:05 PM Page 86 utes, overone thousand passengers died in the raging fire or were drowned in the choppy, turbulent waters. The last survivor of this tragedy died in January 2004. Every year, since the 1904 disaster, the New York Times has published an obituary on June 15 to memorialize those who perished in the tragedy. With the loss of an estimated 1,021 lives, the GeneralSlocum catastrophe became known as New York’s worst disasteruntil the...