White Oak’s Temple B’Nai Israel prepares to close

A closing weekend will be held later this month to welcome back former members one last time.

After more than 100 years of hosting services and celebrating Jewish heritage in the White Oak area, Temple B’Nai Israel, located on Cypress Drive, will close its doors in May.

Temple B’Nai Israel, located on Cypress Drive in White Oak, will close its doors in May.

The congregation — and those who have been part of the congregation in the past — will have a closing weekend starting April 25.

According to members Debbie Iszauk and Lindi Kendal, the reason they are closing their doors is not because of a lack of money, but a lack of people.

“We didn’t run out of money, we ran out of people,” Kendal said. “People died, people moved, people don’t remain affiliated any longer and it’s not just in our religion, it’s in the churches as well.

“And that’s it. We just ran out of interested people and as in all organizations, there are very few of us doing all the work. You walk into a sanctuary and you are all by yourself. It’s not how any religion is supposed to be. You have to interact, and there isn’t any interaction.”

The building was listed for sale in 2024 and was bought by someone who is going to turn the location into a banquet hall. The board decided it was time to close the building because of the lack of people coming to services.

While the closing would have happened sooner or later, Iszauk and Kendal said the popularity of online services — making it easy to stay home if they live far away — sped up the decision.

Kendal, 86, of White Oak was raised in the temple and said she has many memories and has held many positions with the congregation.

“Both of my parents’ families also belonged to the temple, and they were the first temple confirmants to marry and have a child, so I am the first grandchild of the temple,” she said. “I knew that from the minute I was born, and I went way back. There’s nothing in the temple I haven’t done.”

Iszauk, 69, of Monroeville remembers McKeesport and White Oak having a huge Jewish population with four synagogues, but most of the Jewish families have either away or have died out. She reflected about her time with the temple and what it meant to her.

“Temple was where my heart was and we came back to be members 15 years ago,” Iszauk said. “In the Mon Valley, every small town has a synagogue. All like dominoes have been closing down. From Charleroi to Ambridge to Uniontown, none of those communities have synagogues anymore.”

History

The Rev. Joseph Zeisler came to McKeesport from Alabama in 1912 and saw that the Jewish community needed a modern congregation. A meeting was held to discuss the congregation and what to call it before coming up with Temple B’nai Israel.

The Jewish Theological Seminary in New York sent Rabbi Louis Brav in 1913, and he was elected the first rabbi of the temple. Officers were elected, and Brav was installed by the Tree of Life Congregation of Pittsburgh.

At the time, the Gemilas Chesed Congregation, which is still around in White Oak today, had a building at the corner of Jenny Lind Street and School Alley. Temple B’nai Israel then took over that location, the property was bought in 1914 and they started conducting services with Rabbi Murray A. Alstet in 1915.

In 1916, the Temple had grown to a point where there was not enough room to fit the congregation, so they moved to a building on Shaw Avenue in McKeesport.

“I remember when we had so many members for the holidays,” Kendal said. “The children had to go to another building for services. There was no room for them in the sanctuary, and now we have trouble getting 10 for a service thanks to COVID.”

Beginning in the late 1960s, discussions have been held at times about merging the temple with another local congregation due to the eventual declining local Jewish population.

The shifting of the population from McKeesport to White Oak, along with the decline in the number of local Jewish residents, intensified discussions about relocating the temple to the White Oak area.

In late 1999, temple officials were informed by Congregation Tree of Life-Sfard that it desired to sell their White Oak property on Cypress Drive, and they have been at that location ever since — celebrating hundreds of Jewish holidays and services.

During Memorial Day weekend of 2000, Temple B’nai Israel held its last services at the Shaw Avenue sanctuary in McKeesport before hand carrying all the sacred documents to the new location in White Oak.

The current rabbi is Howie Stein. His predecessors are Rabbi Paul Tuchman and Rabbi Dr. Daniel Schiff, who will be at the closing weekend.

“Try to imagine the thousands of lives Temple B’nai Israel has affected in a positive way over the course of its history,” President Lou Anstandig said. “That is truly an awesome legacy to be preserved, not only for us, but for our children, grandchildren and the many generations to follow. The responsibility for preserving that legacy imposes a heavy duty on the leadership of this congregation.”

What’s next?

At 7:30 p.m. April 25, there will be a Shabbat service and oneg, followed by a Saturday morning Shabbat service with a kiddush lunch after. Tours will be given of the old temple location in McKeesport during the day Saturday followed by a dinner that night at Stratigos Banquet Centre in North Huntingdon.

“Everybody moved away, but they are coming back for this,” Iszauk said. “While it’s sad, we are calling this a celebration, a reunion for people who haven’t seen each other for years. My memories will be different from somebody else’s who are coming, but that’s the wonderful thing and it’s how we are all connected.”

Informal Elrod Cemetery visitation will take place Friday afternoon and Sunday morning for those who would like to see the graves of loved ones. Members of the public and officials are also invited to this weekend.

There will be a formal desanctification service for temple members. At that time, the Ner Tamid above the Arks will be extinguished, mezuzahs will be removed from the doors and other religious items will be prepared for removal at that time.

Many items have already been donated or have been designated to be donated to the Rauh Jewish Archives and the McKeesport Regional History and Heritage Center. Some artwork and artifacts were donated by individuals or families, and they will have the first opportunity to claim those items.

“It’s just very meaningful for a lot of people for a lot of different reasons,” Kendal said. “They are coming to say goodbye, that’s all. If we know the family in which the object came, we are calling members of that family to say it’s yours. It is all bittersweet, but most everybody is gone.”

The Jewish Cemetery and Burial Association of Greater Pittsburgh (JCBA) is expected to assume custody and ownership of the cemetery for management and preservation in perpetuity.

Temple Shalom, a synagogue located in Sterling, Ill., is building a new sanctuary and Jewish museum in its community. They are covering the costs of moving some artifacts and are taking some of their own. Some items will be bid out during the farewell weekend.

Religious items, such as mezuzahs, will not be removed from the placement in the temple until the final religious service in May.

“We are going to have more than enough money to see us through and be able to donate generous amounts of money to worthy Jewish causes, and not every synagogue has that opportunity,” Kendal said. “We will be able to help others.”

Family members have been taking yahrzeit plaques with them. Those not claimed will be buried. All the plaques from the temple are located on the website, https:// tbiwhiteoak.org, which will hold the history of the location after it’s gone.

“We have a custom when somebody in the family dies, we observe the anniversary of their death and it’s called a yahrzeit,” Iszauk said. “These plaques represent members and so on the anniversary of their passing, we light their plaque. We are giving it to family members or being buried as if you are honoring their memory. Torahs are hand written on parchment and very valuable, and we are looking for homes for those.”

Iszauk said while the temple is closing, there are other options for people to attend services around the area.

“People still have choices, they still have somewhere,” Iszauk said. “It will just be different, and people will find their own personal way of dealing with it. We are so happy with all of this. We were running out of people. There are so many members who are in their 70s and 80s. This is where their parents or their grandparents were, so it’s generations of being part of here.”

While most members’ friends are no longer here, Kendal said the remaining temple members and alumni coming back for the reunion know they are lucky and are appreciative. She said she is sad to see the place go away, but is looking forward to a new beginning.

“There are a few of us for whom it will have a really deep-seated meaning and it will be the end,” Kendal said. “Everything comes to an end at some point, and every end is a new beginning and I don’t know what our new beginning will be. We’ll have to wait and see.”