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Show Howard Marcus second interview tpe 1. p.2 Andpossibly the attendance was alittl ebit better there. But the fact is that neither congregation o n its own could maintain its own separate house of worship. therefore, the econmic reason fomt merger was that by combining the two congregations, the old bldg. could be sold and they were and the new synangogue could be built. And there were certain negotiations between the two--between the two congregtions as to how the new synagogue wold be built and how it would be operated and so forth. I voted in favor for the merger for economic reasons. I was convinced that economically it was the only feasible thing to do. And I was a member of the new congregation for several years. And then l--and I believe--possibly some other people lost interest because the -the--the services became very conservative. Even during the times when we had a reform rabbi. Services were much longer. Services had more and more Hebrew andless andless English and for many of us whose background was in the reform temple b'nai israel -- very very few members, just pssibly a bare handful of members could read or unerstand Hebrew and we relied upon the english portin of the service to keep us interested. After hte merger, with more and more Hebrew and less and less English and mre and more time spent in the services, I think we -- you have indicated that there are others who feel the same as I do -- we began to drift away and lose interest in the new synagogue. LK Were there any particular instances or clashes, which this movement towards coservatism was felt .... HM No. Ah. I can't say that there was any specific event but I can tell you for example that --now I've only been a coupleof times in the new synagogue. When I walk in , and incidentally, it was agreed at the time of the merger that yarmulkahs would not be required for men. They were optional. But when I have walked in the couple of times I've been here, and I've looked around, and I find that I am practically the only man there without a yarmulkah, I feel alittle uncomfortable. And yet I know that that was the agreement that we former members of b'nai israel--were not required to wear yarmulkahs and there are one or two former members that I have seen there bareheaded. But we are so much in the· minority, and maybe I am putting too much emphasis on this one fairly insiginficant factor, but this to me is typical of the feeling and the atitude which I find as strange for me as if --as I would wheni have, for example, walked into an orthodox Greek service, or a a--completely orthodox Jewish service. And ~ven more strange than if I go to a Mormon service or a Catholic serivce or an episcopalian service. ------ ...... ..: ..... t... ~1... ..... - --,J ~- ... \...,..,.;- |
