A tradition of many years is to be broken here when conservative services start in a few weeks on Friday nights in the Congregation Children of Abraham Synagogue, for more than half a century an orthodox congregation.
Decision to conduct conservative services, as an inducement to young Jewish boys and girls, was made at a meeting attended by nearly 100 members of the congregation, when a brotherhood was organized to arrange these services.
It was decided to hold two services on Friday evening, one at 6 o’clock for the older Jews, and the other at 8 o’clock for the youth.
The six o’clock service will be strictly orthodox, but the 8 o’clock service will be conservative, with Rabbi Aaron Shapiro in charge. Men and women will be allowed to sit together and part of the services will be in English. It was felt that such a step had to be taken if the younger Jews were to be kept in the synagogue.
The Brotherhood elected the following officers: A. B. Jaffe, president; Joseph Levine, vice-president; Saul Seidel, secretary; Benjamin Kowitz. treasurer. Julius Schwartz, Irving Friedman, Bud Berk and Samuel Levine constitute the board of directors.
Junior members will be organized into educational groups and it is also planned to promote a closer social life among the Jewish residents of the city. The Sisterhood, organized some time ago, will cooperate with the Brotherhood in promoting the activities in the synagogue.
The Congregation Children of Abraham held its annual meeting and elected the following officers: A. Aaron, president; Samuel Fishbone, vice-president; William Witzman, secretary; Michael Kowitz, treasurer; Albert Merkin, Reuben G. Moss and Abraham Cohen, trustees.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
