March 28, 2024

Congregation Beth El

March 15, 2015

Few people know that Traverse City is home to the oldest continuously used synagogue in the state of Michigan. The handsome white wooden building sits tucked behind the Grand Traverse County courthouse in a parking lot next to the county jail.

To make it more visible, the name of Congregation Beth El’s street was changed from Court Street to Beth El Way in 2007, but Google Maps never kept up.

While the region’s Jewish community may be small, it’s held steady over time. Downstate synagogues have opened and closed, but Beth El has remained exactly where it stands today since 1885.

The Northern Express visited Beth El recently and spoke with Terry Tarnow, president of the congregation’s board of directors.

Northern Express: How did this synagogue come to be the oldest in Michigan?

Terry Tarnow: It was built in 1885 by a group of Russian immigrants, mostly. They wanted a synagogue. They were very religious Jews. We’re not the oldest congregation. There are older congregations in the metropolitan Detroit area, but they’ve switched buildings a half a dozen times. We’ve never changed buildings. So we’re the oldest synagogue building in continuous use in Michigan. Petoskey’s a few years younger than us, Houghton-Hancock even a little bit younger. [Petoskey’s Temple B’nai Israel opened in 1896 and has continuously operated in the same building since.]

Express: How did it happen that this building is so tucked away, so much that it’s almost hidden?

Tarnow: Perry Hannah, one of the founding fathers of Traverse City, donated land for a lot of the churches. He donated land to us. He donated land for all the churches around here and, little by little, the area got built up. But then, when they built the courthouse, Park Street got closed in. Also, when they built the jail years ago, the county came to us and said, "˜We’ll move the building’ and we’ve gone into discussion with them. Well, it’s very traditional for synagogues that when you’re praying, you face east. So, they found some lots close by here, but the building would have had to sit sideways in order to face east. What we always said to them is, "˜Look, if you’re going to move our building, we want you to make us a little bit better than what we are; we’d like a little bit bigger social hall’ and so on. And the money just wasn’t there. It always was, "˜No.’ The size of what we are, it still suits our needs, so we stayed here. Yes, we’ve been tucked in, but it’s worked out OK.

Express: How would you describe the people who make up the congregation?

Tarnow: There are actually two congregations here in Traverse City. There’s Beth El, which has been here since 1885, and there’s Congregation Ahavat Shalom, which was started about 15 or so years ago. It was started by Rabbi Chava Bahle, who then left the congregation, and we then began to work together. So, for the last probably eight years, we share a rabbi, we share all the holidays. The only difference is we have two bank accounts and two names. That’s it.

Express: Is there an ideological difference between the two?

Tarnow: Originally there was, but I don’t think there is at this point. And we’re in the process of talking of merger. There’s actually a merger committee, because our bylaws are different, to try to rewrite everything to help us merge together. And it will probably have a new name, but the name of this building will not change. It will always be Beth El because of its historic significance. So, what am I going to say? The community is made up of families, couples, seniors and people of all different beliefs, so you’ll have people who are a little more religious; there aren’t very many, but a few who still keep kosher. We’re affiliated with the Reform movement, which is a pretty liberal movement. The main three are Reform, Conservative and Orthodox. And then there are people who probably consider themselves very secular, or even atheists, but feel that the traditions of Judaism are important and support the community.

Express: Has the Jewish community in Traverse City remained steady over the years or has it gotten larger or smaller?

Tarnow: I moved here in 1971 and it was really small. I was in my early 20s when I moved here and a lot of other families moved here and, all of a sudden, we started having babies and so there was a boom. And we saw that cycle go up, where we had 25 kids in religious school; lots of families filled the house. And then the kids went away to college and most of them have moved away, and then we saw a drop. But, with Ahavat Shalom, they’re now at that same point where they have a lot of young families, a lot of kids; there are now 20 kids in the religious school. So we kind of go over this roller coaster and I think now we’re at an up point. Who knows what will happen down the road, but there’s always been enough families to keep the congregation going.

Express: Tell me about Rabbi Scott Segal who comes from Chicago to perform services once a month. According to his bio, he’s not what comes to mind when you think of a rabbi; his interests include CrossFit and the jam band Phish.

Tarnow: He’s athletic; he likes to do a lot of hiking. He’s talking about starting a business where they do hiking and camping, but do Jewish study at the same time. So, you’re out camping and, as you sit around the campfire singing camp songs, you might sing Jewish songs and talk about Torah. He’s in his late 30s, he likes rock ’n’ roll music. The other night at services, because it was the holiday Purim, which is very joyful, he took some rock songs and turned them into Purim songs, which was kind of fun. He was ordained from the Reform movement. He’s very scholarly. We enjoy him very much. He’s had a very good turnout for adult study, but he likes rock ’n’ roll also. He plays guitar and he sings during services. He sings for the first half of the services and, for the more serious part, he puts the guitar away and doesn’t do guitar in the second half.

Express: In the most recent Rabbi’s Message, Segal writes, "As a Jewish community we are obligated to speak out and engage with these issues [homelessness and hunger]; it is essential to our communal being. I encourage the members of this community to let your voices be heard, not simply as residents of Traverse City, but specifically as Jewish residents." Is the congregation united in support of Safe Harbor?

Tarnow: Absolutely. One of our members, Emmy Cholak, is the organizer for the Safe Harbor program and she comes to us and we will help cook and bake and serve, whatever night that is. We also have done a program. Beth El started it at least 20 years ago, and now we all do it together; we always take Christmas dinner to the Goodwill Inn. So they get a home-baked meal. We actually deliver it Christmas Eve. They’ve always said they don’t want us to serve it, so we take it and I think they use it Christmas day. And then we all go out for Chinese, which is a wonderful Jewish custom.

Express: Ezekiel Solomon, a fur trader who settled at Fort Michilimackinac, was the state’s first Jewish settler. I guess that makes sense, in terms of the way Michigan was settled, but does it surprise you that northern Michigan figures so much in the state’s Jewish history?

Tarnow: I don’t know if it’s northern Michigan as much as just a lot of the Eastern European immigrants that came over. I saw it in my family; a lot of them were peddlers, merchants.

Look at what [Julius] Steinberg (one of Beth El’s founders who also built the State Theatre) did. Some of the other families, they opened stores in downtown Traverse City – the same thing in Elk Rapids, probably the same thing in Petoskey. So they provided a service. It’s my understanding one of the early settlers had a wagon cart and went around Leelanau County selling goods out of the back of a wagon. Both sides of my family – both my mother’s side and my father’s side – when they emigrated in the late 1800s/early 1900s, went into retail. It seems to be a common trade.

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