By Pat Healy

For the Journal

     When Phil Weiss walked into the quiet uncrowded temple on Central Street in the late 1970s, he couldn’t have known how important a role he would play in bringing about one of the most successful transformations in the history of Temple B’nai Brith, which is marking its hundredth anniversary this year.

     Faced with a dwindling and aging congregation, the late Morris Kleiman asked Weiss to lead the group in prayer.

     “I’ve heard Phil say that when he came to the temple and he got drafted to be the arranger of spiritual services, what he thought he was doing was putting a congregation to bed,” said Temple B’nai Brith past president and congregation member Dennis Fischman.

     Weiss was ‘drafted’ to be the Temple’s Darshan by Kleiman, who at the time was in his late 60s. Kleiman and his wife Ada, who died last November at age 90,  are widely regarded as the patriarch and matriarch of TBB.

     At the time Kleiman approached Weiss, most of the congregation, which only included about 35 households, was in their retirement years, and Weiss was the sort of fresh face and young blood they were looking for to keep the Temple afloat and replace B’nai Brith’s Rabbi, who had retired just a few years before.

     Phil’s brother Seth, who joined the congregation a few years after Phil, reminisced about the atmosphere of Temple B’nai Brith when he first arrived, and how friendly the older folks were.

     “All of them had this vision that if they kept things going long enough a new generation would come,” he said. “And they were right, but one of the main reasons they were right was because of how warm and welcoming they were.”

     Lucille Mabel, who is now 87, said welcoming also included being open to the ideas of the younger generation.

     “The young people that came in felt no opposition from the old people left from the previous era,” she said. “They were given carte blanche to have their way and do their things and I think that’s what made the regrowth possible.”

     Seth said the older generation deserves an enormous amount of credit for opening their minds and changing their ways. In a traditional setting women do not participate in Temple.

     “This group sort of understood that changes were going to have to be made,” he said. “Just because they didn’t count women, doesn’t mean that women shouldn’t count, and they were able to transform their own sense of what a Jewish service was when they were 75 years old, and that’s pretty impressive.”

     Mabel, who has been going to services at TBB her whole life, remembers when there were 250 families in the congregation. She said although today’s congregation, with 180 families, is not quite as big, it has a similar spirit.

     “Everybody lived near the Temple, and we quickly became friends with these neighbors. We would trade recipes, and help each other with whatever needed to be done, and we became like an extended family,” she said. “I think now the young people help each other in the same way. I think it has come like a round-robin there and that makes me very happy.”

     Another sign that happy days are here again is the fact that B’nai Brith now has a successful Hebrew school, after not having one for many years. Hebrew school was one of the main tenets upon which the Temple was founded. In 1903 President of the Hebrew Educational Society of Somerville Joseph Hillson, along with four other officers petitioned the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to establish a synagogue and Hebrew school. It was given the name B’nai Brith in 1915, and the current Central Street structure was built in 1922.

     Things were not always so kosher though. In the 1950s much of Somerville’s Jewish population moved away and B’nai Brith suddenly wasn’t as crowded.

     “In the 1950s it went down to practically a dozen people,” said Mabel.

     There were offers from other congregations to consolidate, but Mabel said B’nai Brith refused to surrender its identity.

     “I remember when a new Temple was built in Medford and this one guy came over and said ‘you’re a dying community you should come to Medford.’ But the people here were incensed and they sort of dug their heels in and proved that they didn’t have to lay down and die, and give up the ship,” she said.

     And even after the torch was passed to Phil Weiss, there was still struggle, said Fischman.

     “When I joined in 1990, they’d had about one Bar Mitzvah in about 15 years,” he said.

     So how did the congregation finally turn itself around?

     B’nai Brith President Lisa Andelman said they have taken the older generation’s welcoming spirit to the next level.

     “It’s very egalitarian which is something you don’t find in traditional communities,” she said. “Women participate fully, we’re open to interfaith married families, and we have gay and lesbian members, so from a social point of view it’s not traditional at all.”

     Another group which the congregation caters to is converted Jews, or as Fischman says ‘Jews by choice.’ Even Andelman was once of a different faith.

     It is an issue of respect within the Jewish community that a person’s faith prior to his or her conversion to Judaism is not discussed. Andelman was forthcoming about her background in order to illustrate the diversity of which she spoke.

     Andrés Bueno, an eighth grader at Somerville Charter School who was just Bar Mitzvah’ed, said the open exchange of ideas is what he likes best about the teachings of B’nai Brith.

     “Phil was my tutor and when he taught me he accepted my ideas even if he didn’t agree with them,” he said.

     Even though the Temple is socially progressive, it is traditional in its teaching. Nothing is left out of the prayer book, said Andelman. However, there is a monthly alternative Saturday morning service coordinated by Fischman and other congregation members.

     “The alternative service is a little bit more unpredictable than the set structure of the regular service,” Fischman said. “It could be singing one month and a political discussion the next month.”

     As for what’s in store for B’nai Brith, congregation members are optimistic, but realize there will be some work ahead in order to keep the Temple flourishing. 

     “One of the reasons why the community revived was the people’s personal attachment to the older generation,” said Fischman. “The time is going to come soon where people will walk through that door and we’re going to have to find other reasons and other ways of making people fell like they belong here, and that remains a challenge for the future. The younger generation are now middle-aged and it’s really important for this group to learn from the people they inherited the synagogue from.”

     Congregation member Enid Kumin said she envisions the congregation expanding.

     “TBB already has many ties within Somerville and beyond to religious and educational organizations, Jewish and non-Jewish alike,” she said. “These ties, hopefully will multiply and strengthen with time and will contribute to a larger community.”