Chicago’s historic Temple Sinai, one of the leading reformed Jewish congregations in America, expects by the end of this year to be housed in a new structure to be erected in the Hyde Park district on the South Side of Chicago. Its present temple and educational center at 46th Street and South Parkway will probably be taken over by a Negro church. The present buildings are now in the center of Chicago’s rapidly spreading Negro district.
At meetings to be held soon the congregation will decide upon the new site. In the meantime specific plans for the new structure are going forward.
One of the reasons for Sinai’s impending change is the rapid increase in the educational work that is being done by the Emil G. Hirsch Center of Sinai Congregation. Of the nearly 3,000 persons attending its lecture courses forty per cent are not Jews. Its teaching has become city-wide. Nine hundred of its students do not live on the South Side, while many come from far-away suburbs. Lecturers who represent all shades of belief are welcome to the Center’s platform. Highly specialized work is also being done at the center; there are 19 classes in classical dancing for children, as well as classes in music, drama, opera study, debating and languages. There are 21 teachers and clerical assistants in the center. Sinai Congregation carries this system of paid teachers even into its Sunday school, where there are 24 paid teachers.
Rabbi Louis L. Mann is the spiritual leader of Temple Sinai. Working with him is S. D. Schwartz, whose specialty is program-making for the center.
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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.
