A protest made to the Commission Council by residents in the 2100 block in Milan Street against an Orthodox Jewish synagogue in that block on the ground that it is a public nuisance in a residential section, was characterized as “a direct insult,” in a letter sent to the Council by Rabbi Moses Goldberg of the Congregation Chevra Thilim, with which the Milan Street synagogue is affiliated. The synagogue is in a private house and plans are under way to move it across the street.
Taking up the complainants’ statement that the manner of worship in the Milan Street synagogue is very loud and constitutes a nuisance, Rabbi Goldberg said that “such an accusation is a direct insult to about 15,000,000 Jews who still pray in the Orthodox manner. And such a complaint did not come even from the darkest countries for the Jews.”
“It is a well known fact,” says Rabbi Goldberg’s statement, “that singing services, or ‘loud services,’ as the petitioners claim, are held in many churches of various denominations. And to declare that people who awake early in the morning to sacredly serve their God by uttering the Songs of Psalms and other prophetical verses constitute a nuisance, is absurd and outrageous.
“It is customary in our city for services to be conducted in the Orthodox synagogue during weekdays for one hour in the morning between 6 and 7 o’clock, and for about 45 minutes in the evening at sunset. On Saturdays and ordinary holidays the morning services last from 8:30 to 10:30 o’clock. Only on the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah, services last for the first half of the day, and on Yom Kippur all day. And on these great Holidays, even the stern officials of the Russian government attend the synagogue to be inspired by these sacred services.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
