NEW YORK (JTA) — A 51-year-old Reform temple in New York’s Rockland County — an area whose liberal Jewish population has plummeted in recent decades as its haredi Orthodox community has rapidly grown — is closing its doors.
READ: In Rockland County, non-Orthodox try to create alternative to Hasidic dominance
Temple Beth El will in June vacate its building in Spring Valley, 3 miles from the Hasidic village of New Square, as part of a merger with Temple Beth Torah in Upper Nyack, the Journal News reported Thursday. For the past year, the two had been alternating worship services between the two buildings.
The 32,000 square foot building, built in 1965, will be sold at auction early next month, with bidding expected to begin at $6.7 million.
Once over 1,000-members strong, the congregation reached its peak in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, according to the Journal News.
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