2023 Valley Talk #4 | B’nai Israel: Woonsocket’s Gorgeous but Little-Known Synagogue
Rhode Island Historical Society hosted Valley Talk #4 from its 2023 series via Zoom on Sunday, February 19 at 1:30 p.m. The talk, titled “B’nai Israel: Woonsocket’s Gorgeous but Little-Known Synagogue”, featured historian George M. Goodwin as the main speaker. Goodwin was a former president of the Rhode Island Jewish Historical Association and has edited multiple publications. He spent most of the talk describing synagogues and other places of worship around Rhode Island, New England, and the world, accompanying his detailed descriptions with beautiful images. He finished with information about B’nai Israel in Woonsocket, RI. The entire talk with question and answer session took just under 90 minutes.
Touro Synagogue of Newport, RI
The oldest extant synagogue in North America is Touro Synagogue of Newport, RI, constructed in 1763 by British-American architect Peter Harrison. Harrison introduced the Palladian style of architecture to the Americas, with buildings based on the work of 16th century Venetian architect Andrea Palladio and similar in appearance to the Neoclassical style. Other notable Harrison buildings include Christ Church of Philadelphia, PA; Redwood Library & Athenaeum, St. John’s Freemasons Hall (now located in Portsmouth, RI), renovations to Trinity Episcopal Church, Old Brick Market (now Newport Historical Society Museum & Shop), and Francis Malbone House (now a luxury inn) of Newport, RI; King’s Chapel of Boston, MA; and Trinity Church of Brooklyn, CT. The Touro Synagogue was strategically located on Touro Street not far from Newport Colony House, a former Rhode Island state house. Also on the campus is the Levi Gail House, a mansion built in 1835 and moved to the current site in 1925 to act as a community center.
Congregations had previously constructed other synagogues in the British-American colonies. Sephardi Jews from Spain and Portugal, who had previously lived in Brazil, arrived in New Amsterdam (now New York City) in 1654 and built Mill Street Synagogue by 1730, but the congregation razed the building about 90 years later to construct a larger synagogue. Today, the Congregation Shearith Israel remains the oldest Jewish congregation in New York.
The Many Buildings of Temple Beth-El
Goodwin’s own place of worship is Temple Beth-El Congregations Sons of Israel and David, which has occupied many buildings. Goodwin used this series of buildings to demonstrate how synagogues have no single, official style of architecture.
The congregation occupied its first building for twenty years, then sold to a Swedish Baptist congregation, who demolished the site in the 1950s. The congregation constructed their second building as a burial society with a Jewish cemetery in 1855. They erected a third, Neoclassical style building in 1911 on the opposite side of Providence and occupied this building until 1954, when they sold the property to Congregation Shaare Zedek, which renamed the space Broad Street Synagogue. The congregation left the space and combined with modern Orthodox Congregation Beth Sholom in 2006. No one has officially occupied the building in the past 15 years, and the structure faces significant vandalism and disrepair. Its decorative stained-glass windows have little iconographical design and are not aesthetically or historically important enough for museum-level preservation.
In 1954, Percival Goodman designed and constructed the current Temple Beth-El on Orchard Avenue, down the street from St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, as a modernist building at a cost of $1.5 million. Goodman was the most prolific synagogue architect of all time, constructing more than fifty buildings around the United States. The main sanctuary seats about 800 people, while drawing back the curtains separating the sanctuary from the classrooms adds another 600 spots. The expansive, lattice-like ceiling over the massive seating area creates a dramatic space. A more personal chapel space seats about 100 congregants and hosts weddings, funerals, and daily minyan or prayer services.
Other Worship Sites in New England
Goodwin continued to highlight synagogues around Rhode Island. Temple Emanu-El in Providence, RI, erected from 1924 to 1926 as a Conservative congregation, embraced many architectural traditions, including Neoclassical, Byzantine, and early Christian styles. The sanctuary has a bema or stage in the front of the room, a lectern in the middle following Sephardic tradition, and an upstairs gallery for women and children at the back. Henry Keck Studio of Syracuse, NY designed the stained-glass windows portraying symbolic images like a “priestly blessing”, the façade of the Temple Emanu-El building, and the burning bush. Congregants fund updates to the windows to engrave in memory of family members.
A set of three chapels around a pond on the campus of Brandeis University were among Goodwin’s favorite worship spaces. Constructed by modernist architectural firm Harrison & Abramovitz and dedicated in 1955, the small brick buildings are identical on the outside and customized inside to Jewish, Protestant, or Catholic beliefs.
Another favorite was the Portsmouth Abbey Church at Portsmouth Abbey School and Monastery, a Benedictine campus near Newport, RI. Italian-American modernist architect Pietro Belluschi, the Dean of Architecture at MIT during that time, designed this elegant and innovative space in 1961. Based on the octagon shape of the 6th century Basilica di San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy, itself a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the church in Portsmouth is dedicated to St. Gregory the Great and contains wire sculptures of Hungarian-American artist György Kepes, who worked at MIT with Belluschi.
Goodwin also had a least favorite worship space: the building for Temple Sinai, designed by Richmond & Goldberg from Boston and constructed in Cranston, RI in 1954 with an unassuming exterior and small stained-glass windows, which disservices the great work of the Reformed congregation.
B’nai Israel of Woonsocket, RI
Near the end of the talk, Goodwin described the construction of B’nai Israel at 224 Prospect Street in Woonsocket. World events delayed fundraising for the building, as congregants donated money to Holocaust survivors, military veterans, and the newly founded State of Israel. Samuel Glaser designed the building in 1954 and sought inspiration from other architects, especially those in the greater Boston area. He constructed a significant example of modernist architecture after World War II. B’nai Israel served as the congregation for up to 200 families during its peak, but the space is large enough for 1,000 families.
Stained-glass windows are a highlight of B’nai Israel. Created at a cost of $40,000 out of an $820,000 budget, French-Israeli artist Avigdor Arikha designed a series of six massive, treelike stained-glass windows and fourteen smaller stained-glass windows. Constance Glaser Kantar, the daughter of Samuel Glaser and owner of Kantar Fine Arts, framed and donated Arikha’s original watercolor sketches of the windows to the synagogue. Unfortunately, many images hang in direct sunlight, causing the paint to fade. The stained-glass imagery is not representation as seen in Temple Emanu-El, but an abstract design with an interpretation “left to the worshipper’s imagination” according to Goodwin. By the 1960s and 1970s, Arikha became a “hip, highly regarded” painter with such clients as the Rothschild family.
Besides its remarkable stained-glass windows, B’nai Israel has numerous other design features. Near the entrance of the building is an overhang shaped to represent the eye of God. A plaque dedicates the building to five servicemen who died during World War 2. Inscribed into the wall in one hallway is Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, along with names of other deceased congregants and the dates of their deaths. Another wall displays the names of donors to an endowment fund. Inside the sanctuary, dark panels with an intricate yet abstract design likely serve as a Holocaust memorial. Reproduction curtains identical to the original set designed by German textile artist Anni Albers cover the opening to the holy ark, which holds the Torah scrolls. The Josef & Anni Albers Foundation currently owns the originals. Inscribed above the ark are the 10 Commandments, while twelve small windows near the ark represent the twelve Tribes of Israel.