Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington

Sound waves

joselitJuly 28, 2014November 16, 2017Leave a comment

This past week, I thought a lot about sound. My aural consciousness was aroused, in part, by what’s currently going on in Israel and Gaza. As sirens wailed and missiles hit their targets, it was hard to concentrate on much of anything apart from the sounds of war.

But then, that wasn't the only thing that got me thinking about soundscapes. The recent publication by Yale University Press of Sensational Religion: Sensory Cultures in Material Religion, a handsomely produced volume of essays edited by the redoubtable Sally Promey of Yale’s Institute of Sacred Music, also put me in mind of the centrality of sound in our lives, especially when it comes to the practice of faith.

This book, much like A History of Religion in 5 1⁄2 Objects, which I reviewed for The New Republic a few months ago, makes the claim, convincingly, that religion is as grounded in the sensory -- in sound and smell, visuality and tactility -- as it is in grand abstractions about sin, heaven and the prospect of deliverance.

Its tantalizingly brief section on what Promey smartly calls “audible religion” suggests the plasticity of the approach she and the other contributors to this volume roundly endorse. Religious pluralism, it turns out, isn't just a matter of making room for others at the table. It also takes the form of exploring how some American municipalities accommodated the Muslim summons to prayer and how one Christian seminary reckoned with an art installation, whose use of Hindu ritual bells intruded on the rhythms of the day.

The week drew to a close harmoniously, and soothingly, with a ceremony honoring Laura Cohen Apelbaum for her 20 years of service as director of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington. The program was held within the intimate precincts of its late 19th century red brick building, formerly a synagogue, now located at 3rd and G in downtown D.C. Although I've had the good fortune to visit any number of times, its pews were usually empty of people. This time around, they were filled to capacity.

The presence of people and the sounds they projected, especially when, at the ceremony’s conclusion, everyone enthusiastically joined together to offer a prayer of thanksgiving -- in Hebrew -- gave shape, texture and meaning to the Society’s efforts at historical reconstruction and preservation. Enlivened by sound, an historic space that once housed a congregation was no longer a mute witness to the past. It had come alive.

Signs and wonders

joselitMay 18, 2014November 16, 2017Leave a comment

As I write, thousands of GW students and their families gather excitedly on the Mall to celebrate their graduation. Flanked on one side by the U.S. Capitol and on the other by the Washington Monument, they face a galaxy of notables on the dais whose words of both praise and exhortation will fill the air. This is Washington at its most Washingtonian -- grand, exultant, enduring.

Synagogue mural — Credit: Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington/The InTowner

A few miles away, at 415 M Street, there’s another kind of Washington, one which increasing numbers of GW students have come to discover through their classes and internships. This part of town, known to many as Mt. Vernon Square, is humble, modest and in a continuous state of flux. It’s a monument to change.

Consider 415 M Street, whose very address -- so direct and to the point -- underscores the neighborhood’s lack of pretension. Built in the 1860s as a family dwelling, this brick row house subsequently became home to a succession of institutions: The Young Men’s Hebrew Association, the Hebrew Home for the Aged, an Orthodox synagogue known, with no muss or fuss, as Shomrei Shabbos (Keepers of the Sabbath). Later still, before reverting back to private ownership, it housed the Church of Jesus Christ as well as the Metropolitan Community Church. These days, having changed hands once again, 415 M is about to be converted into a condominium.

Taken as a whole, the building’s history is a familiar story of changing demographics, urban succession and gentrification. What renders its history more poignant still is the fairly recent discovery of a second floor mural, whose starry blue sky and half moon of Hebrew letters once hovered above the synagogue’s Ark, anchoring it in space and within the collective imagination of Shomrei Shabbos’s small band of congregants.

Over time, a window was inserted into the wall that contained the mural, disrupting its visual integrity. Its colors have faded, too. What’s more, in a well-intentioned but historically suspect attempt to restore the mural to its full glory, a recent owner of 415 M added a winged lion to the display, complicating matters.

What will become of the mural is anyone’s guess. The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington has expressed a keen interest in safeguarding the artifact’s future. Toward that noble end, this steward of Washington’s Jewish past has launched a fund-raising campaign to secure the necessary funds with which to remove, stabilize, conserve and preserve it. Let’s hope the organization’s efforts will be successful and that this colorful fragment of American Jewish history will be able to take its rightful place among the signs and wonders of the nation’s capital.

History on Parade

joselitOctober 24, 2011November 16, 2017Leave a comment

This past Sunday afternoon, the students in my Jewish Geography class got more than they bargained for when they attended a matinee performance of Parade, a two act musical at the historic Ford’s Theatre that centered on the sobering events that culminated in the lynching of Leo Frank of Atlanta in the 19teens.

As luck would have it, we were just about to begin our inquiry into the history of Atlanta’s Jewish community, one in which the Leo Frank case figures prominently, when, thanks to the generosity of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington and its executive director, Laura Cohen Apelbaum, we were able to deepen our engagement with this watershed moment in the American Jewish experience by attending a performance of the celebrated play.

I could be wrong, of course, but I suspect my students hadn’t given too much advance thought to what they would see on the stage – apart, that is, from casually wondering how a musical could possibly do justice to the complexities of a tragic, real life event.

But as we chatted at intermission and then again at the conclusion of the play, it became increasingly clear to all of us, myself included, that a lot more was at stake than historical characters breaking into song.

What Parade underscored in a most immediate and compelling way was the tension between fact and fiction, historicity and creative license. Frequently, the play departed from the historical record, either by telescoping events or, more provocatively still, by having the characters wear an article of clothing (a prayer shawl, for example) or give voice to a turn of phrase (such as the recitation of the Sh’ma) that never, ever happened. ...continue reading "History on Parade"

On the town

joselitSeptember 29, 2010November 16, 2017Leave a comment

Chinatown D.C. Can you imagine the Jewish neighborhood that used to be here? Creative commons licensed image by Flickr user shindohd.

On a recent rainy Sunday afternoon, the students in my "Jewish Geography" class and I traipsed around downtown Washington in pursuit of what had once been a thriving Jewish neighborhood.

Seventh Street, we were told by our knowledgeable and affable guide, David McKenzie of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington, the sponsor of our walking tour, had long ago been the hub, perhaps even the spine, of D.C.'s Jewish community. But between the looming presence of the Verizon Center and the clamoring presence of a Quiznos on the one hand and a striking array of Chinese signage on the other, our imaginations had to work overtime to visualize the modest storefronts and homes owned and lived in by the Behrends and the Cohens, the Dodeks and the Smalls.

Were it not for a number of synagogues on our tour – or, more precisely still, former synagogues turned churches, whose stained glass windows and exterior markings still bear the faintest traces of Jewish stars – I suspect that many in our merry band of walkers in the city would have been hard put to believe Mr. McKenzie. Essentially, we were asked to take it on faith that once upon a time, downtown had been a Jewish enclave.

As we made our way up one decidedly contemporary street and down another, what did my students, who hailed from California and Florida, Ohio and Tennessee, make of this exercise in conjuring up the past? Did it frustrate them? Awaken an appetite for historical sleuthing or extinguish it altogether? More pointedly still, were they saddened by the disappearance of what had once been a vibrant community or did they take it in stride, as an inevitable consequence of change?

They responded to these questions in different ways. Several students spoke of how the neighborhood's Jewish presence managed, somehow, to peek through the scrim of Chinatown. Others rued the fact that what had once been alive was now contained in a history museum. And still others embraced change as the one constant in modern life.

What united these disparate answers was a growing awareness that history lessons can be found on the street as well as in the classroom.