2003-02-28-southwest_riverside

2003-02-28 Southwest Riverside County

California

Riverside County

Murrieta

New beginnings for Jews
in SW Riverside County

San Diego Jewish Press-Heritage, Feb. 28, 2003

By Donald H. Harrison

Murrieta—There are some important similarities between Congregation B'nai Chaim,
founded here in 1972, and Temple Beth Sholom, established seven years earlier in Sun City, about 15 miles to the north.

Both Conservative congregations were started by Jews living in adjacent retirement communities. Both are housed in spacious facilities with mortgages completely paid from proceeds of sales of adjoining lands. And both congregations are concerned that in order to survive, they must attract
new members.

B'nai Chaim, located in a growth area attracting young families, now has a school with 54 students. The parents of these young scholars are among the 160 families that comprise the congregation.

Beth Sholom, with 80 members in a designated retirement community, has no school, so it looks to favorable real estate values as a way of attracting other retirees to the area.

Meanwhile, in Temecula, just to the south of Murrieta, there are two relatively new congregations — one Reform and one Chasidic— that are in the early stages of development.

Congregation Havurim began meeting in 1994 at a variety of venues in southwestern Riverside County, but for the last several years the Reform congregation has rented space from the Temecula United Methodist Church.

Havurim includes 65 family units and educates about 25 pupils in its religious school.

Chabad of Temecula is based in the living room of its spiritual leader, Rabbi Yitzchok Hurwitz, who came to the area in 1999 and began offering classes in Judaism. The Chasidic congregation does not keep a formal membership roster; its successes are measured in events, such as a menorah lighting at Temecula's Duck Pond that attracted 100 people, and Judaic studies classes that draw about a dozen people.

At B'nai Chaim, Rabbi David Barnett said that changes in his congregation are symbolized by which street the synagogue, at the corner of Via Princessa and Murietta Hot Springs Road, orients itself toward.

When the congregation was built, he explained, it faced Via Princessa, the main drive linking Murietta Hot Springs Road up a hill to a mobile home retirement community that had drawn numerous Jewish residents, many of whom were Holocaust survivors.

"For the people who lived in this mobile home community, this is 'the hill'; there is no more important hill in the world," Barnett observed. "They say 'I live on the hill.' That is a very important orientation for the history, outlook and feeling of what this community has been.

"And when they established this physical facility, there was a very moving ceremony which the seniors recall to this day, those who participated in it. They had been meeting in a clubhouse and they physically carried the Torah scroll down here in a procession toward this site. The first High Holidays, they did not have a roof on, and, I am told, they went ahead with the High
Holiday celebration and prayed it didn't rain ..."

Today, however, "with the demographics of the community changing, with so much new construction going on in Temecula and through Murietta, particularly along Murietta Hot Springs Road and continuing east, with all of the developments in that direction, the focus is the south side of the building, rather than the west side of the building," Barnett said.

Eight years ago, Leonard Blackman moved to this area from San Diego, where he had lived for 45 years and had been a member of Beth Jacob Congregation, an Orthodox synagogue. Today ritual vice president for B'nai Chaim, he said he was attracted to the Murrieta area because he could buy for "less than $90,000" a home that, he believes, would have cost $300,000 in San Diego. "I got a bargain on it because the gentleman who had it moved to England and
wanted no part of it."

Today, real estate values in southwestern Riverside County are not that alluring, but there still are savings over neighboring counties. "The housing market here three years ago was $200,000 less than Orange County and Los Angeles County," observed Rabbi Barnett. "Now, during the last year and a half, it has gone up $100,000. I wish I had been able to buy a home back then. I've been looking at three-bedroom homes, and you can still get them for $250,000-$260,000." Three years ago, the same homes would have sold for $160,000, he said.

In Sun City, an unincorporated retirement village, housing costs are still quite attractive, according to Jay Palley, chairman of religious practices at Temple Beth Sholom, which enthusiastically tries to recruit retired Jews to the area.

Although prices have gone up, Palley remembers it being not so long ago when $120,000 would fetch a home with three bedrooms and two bathrooms in the Sun City core. "But," he cautioned, "these houses are 30-40 years old. You have to face the fact that you will have to change the carpeting, put in new bathroom facilities, perhaps a new roof. You don't just buy it and move in."
Nevertheless, "because of the nature of things— there are many people here who live on a modest income— even shopping here is less expensive," Palley said. The local grocery store "does a land office business" by keeping prices low.

Because Sun City is a certified senior community, persons under the age of 45 are not permitted to live there, unless they are caregivers. The community, which is not gated, has facilities for "lawn bowling, big meeting rooms, every type of shop you can imagine, every club you can imagine,"
Palley said.

"In fact, in the early days of this congregation, it wasn't only a congregation, it was a Jewish social club. We have two golf courses in town— the least expensive golfing anywhere in the country ..."
With a paid-off mortgage, Beth Sholom's yearly dues are— can you believe it? — ³$115 per year per person, including High Holiday tickets," Palley said.

"Everything is paid for; in fact, we have had a new roof put on— it has been painted— a new air conditioner, heating systems ...," Palley continued. "All the mechanical and structural aspects of it have been upgraded, so we know we are safe."

Of course, there still is fundraising at the congregation. People make contributions in memory or honor of others, there are special High Holiday appeals and, under the auspices of Margarete Grunewald, president of the Auxiliary, there are various dinners and special events with modest ticket prices.

Grunewald left her native Vienna in 1938 and lived in Israel for many years, then settled with her husband in the United States, living first in New Jersey and then getting away from the snow 15 years ago by moving to Sun City.

"It was a very nice temple and I felt at home here right away," she said. "I think we are smaller, but we are still nice. We call it our extended family."

Palley moved to Sun City from Anaheim 12 years ago. "When I came here, it was like being at home, though I didn't know anyone."

Having co-authored an unpublished book on Torah, Palley started teaching adult education classes and occasionally tutored teenagers from nearby communities about the Torah. Eventually, he became the lay religious authority in the congregation, which has no ordained clergy to lead it.

The reason Palley pitches the advantages of living in Sun City so hard is the fact that the synagogue has only 80 members left, and his fondest hope is "that we can get 50 new people who can carry on."

Time is fleeting, Palley said. "I am 74 years old and I am still the kid around here."

In contrast, Congregation Havurim and Chabad of Temecula have been appealing
to younger Jews.

"We are, I think, a very family-oriented congregation," said Peter Lucier, a member of the congregation's religious practices committee as well as a former membership chairman. "The majority of our members are families with children. A smaller percentage, maybe a third, are older people, either retired or people whose kids grew up and moved away."

Lucier said he and his wife were married in a Reform congregation in New Jersey, but found when they moved to the Murrieta-Temecula area that the only congregation then existing was B'nai Chaim. "Our son had a bar mitzvah there; we were there three years," he said.

Congregation Havurim is "probably on the liberal side of Reform Judaism and I think that they (B'nai Chaim) are on the Orthodox side of Conservative Judaism," Lucier said. "For both my wife and I, there was a big difference—a totally different prayer book, a different service, different tunes." So, after Congregation Havurim was established, the Lucier family made the
switch.

"We continue to grow and attract new families every year," Lucier said. "We have two professional people leading our services— a student rabbi, Rick Kellner, and a woman who studies Jewish education and social services at Hebrew Union College, Andrea Fleekop. She comes here on the third Friday and does our service, and on Saturdays they both do a Torah study class.

"Rick does an adult b'nai mitzvah class and Andrea does a class on the different parts of the service, comparing it to Orthodox and Conservative— what is included, what is excluded, and a discussion of why," Lucier said. "Rick stays here all weekend, and works with the children in the religious school."

Havurim is "developing a plan for growth and finding a way to have a full-time rabbi," Lucier said. "We¹re also investigating the option of having a more permanent location for our services. The church will be building a bigger sanctuary on the adjacent piece of land. They have added
more space for classrooms, so we could have a space for a rabbi and offices."

Lucier said that the church has been very cooperative, and "they made it very clear up front that they were not interested in proselytizing or converting any of us to become Methodists."

One can't visit the Chabad House in Temecula without thinking of children. The house is in the Paseo del Sol residential development of Temecula; except for the large menorah in front of the house, a passerby could not distinguish it from any other suburban home.

Hurwitz and his wife Dina, daughter of Chabad Rabbi Aaron David Berkowitz of Orange County, are married six years and are raising a young family. A portable aron kodesh can be found in the living room; a den does triple duty as a library, classroom and office.

The Hurwitzes moved to the house 2 1/2 years ago and "it is like a train station, used for Chabad work." Gentile neighbors are quite friendly, and "we are all good friends, everyone on the block," the rabbi said. "When we got together last Fourth of July, they asked me to say a few words, and when they make parties at their homes, sometimes they will call me over."

Occasionally, enough Jews will come over to make a minyan for Shabbat, but more often Hurwitz's interactions with fellow Jews are during the week. "I like to spend time learning with them, and if I can teach them they might decide to learn a little more, learn to daven, and perhaps get involved." He takes his school on the road, offering one course at a local Starbucks
coffee house.

The courses are designed by the Lubavitch-affiliated Jewish Learning Institute. A recently concluded course focused on halacha; the next will deal with Jewish mysticism. Among a dozen students, some are in their mid-20s, and one woman is in her 90s, "a youthful person," in the rabbi's estimate.

The rebbitzin conducts a rosh chodesh program for women. "We talk about what goes on in that month, particularly issues pertaining to women," she said. "We also get a lot of guests in the kitchen, people who want to learn what is kosher and watch as I cook."

She added: "One of the biggest challenges that we come across is that people have a perception of Orthodox Judaism that I, having been brought up that way, don't know where they got it from. They think that Orthodox women need to be meek, quiet and subservient to their husbands, and don't have a mind of their own; that they are not educated and that their job is in the kitchen. ... As people get to know us, they get to see that we are not that way. My husband is a nice guy; he treats men and women both very nicely, and I have a big mouth and don¹t hesitate to open it. I am not subservient at all."

Together, the couple has built a day camp program.

* * *
If Peggy Locke, sisterhood president of B'nai Chaim, ever realizes her dream, all four Jewish congregations along the Interstate 15 corridor in southwestern Riverside County would work closely together to deepen the sense of Jewish community in the area.

Locke, who had lived in Rancho Bernardo and once served as sisterhood president at Temple Adat Shalom of Poway, now occupies a similar position at B'nai Chaim. Noting that the B'nai Chaim facility is paid off, yet underused, and that neither Congregation Havurim nor Chabad of Temecula have their own synagogue buildings, she dreams of transforming B'nai Chaim¹s building into a community center that could be shared by all three congregations.

In theory, Locke said, Chabad could supervise the kosher kitchen and have its own minyan, while B'nai Chaim and Havurim could rotate responsibility for Shabbat services. Realizing that geography, theology and possibly personalities might make such a physical merger impossible, Locke nevertheless hopes the congregations can come closer together in other ways.

She said she is encouraged that board members of Havurim and B'nai Chaim favor scheduling joint activities for youth. She believes a class taught by Chabad's Rabbi Hurwitz at B'nai Chaim might be welcomed. She'd like to see exchange visits between B'nai Chaim and Temple Beth Sholom.

Additionally, said Locke, she is hopeful the congregations can plan joint activities together such as Yom HaShoah observances or Yom Ha'Atzma'ut celebrations.

Perhaps, she said, the four congregations also could develop joint programming modeled after the Festival of Jewish Learning sponsored by San Diego's Agency for Jewish Education, or the Jewish Film Festival produced by the Lawrence Family JCC's Center for Jewish Culture.
"There are so many possibilities I wish everyone would explore," Locke said.