333 E Portland St Synagogue Beth Hebrew

at 333 E Portland St, Phoenix , 85004 United States

1. Synagogue

https://www.pinterest.com/phxbklyn/333-e-portland/

Description

They call Elias Loewy the Jewish Schindler. There's some irony to the title, because Elias Loewy, a Jewish refugee from Europe, founded the Phoenix synagogue where Steven Spielberg became a bar mitzvah, decades before Spielberg would make Oskar Schindler's story world famous. Together with French administrator Camille Ernst, and at tremendous risk to himself and his family, Loewy finagled the release of some 1,500 Jews from French deportation camps in the early 1940s. For his "inefficiency" in arresting Jews, Camille Ernst was sent to Dachau. He survived and returned to France in 1945; in 1971, he was named as "Righteous Among the Nations" by Yad Vashem. Elias Loewy's two sons fought with the French resistance; one – Fred Loewy – survived. After the war, Elias Loewy and his family emigrated to the United States and ended up in Arizona, because the climate was deemed better for Elias' poor health. In Phoenix, Elias helped establish the Jewish Free Loan Society, to help less fortunate refugees. And in 1950, he co-founded Beth Hebree, also known as Beth Hebrew, an Orthodox congregation located on what was then the east side of Phoenix, so that Jews in that part of town could walk to shul on Shabbat. With the help of the improbably named Abraham Lincoln Krohn, a Reform Rabbi in Phoenix for whom social justice was a central tenet of Judaism, Loewy and company were able to raise the funds to build an elegant, light filled modern building at 333 East Portland. Rabbi Krohn donated the Torah. Designed by architect Max Kaufman as a testament to the future of Jewish life in a new country, the building still stands. In spite of its dilapidated condition, its bones are solid. But, like so many historic buildings in Phoenix, Beth Hebree is for the most part unknown and unsung. Despite the best efforts of Elias' son Fred, who painstakingly documented the history of his family and of the congregation, and whose testimony was documented by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and by the Shoah Foundation, the Beth Hebree building languishes. And it (WAS) in imminent danger. Letters of support for the preservation of this unique monument have come from as far afield as Jewish Heritage UK and from the group "Documentation and Conservation of Monuments of the Modern Movement," in France. Art historian Fabienne Chevallier, on behalf of the latter organization, writes, "even in France, we have heard about the present state of the Portland Street Synagogue, formerly known as Beth Hebree. This building has meaning for those interested in modern architecture, the preservation of history through the monuments that record it, and also for humanitarians. We know that Monsieur E. Loewy, an émigré from France to the USA, was instrumental in establishing the congregation that originally built the synagogue and conducted worship there; he performed heroic deeds to save his fellow Jews in France, and was surely a welcome addition to the population of Phoenix." Fred Loewy died in 2006. He told the story of Beth Hebree to anyone prepared to listen, right up until his death. He talked about how the light streamed in through the high windows, about how Abraham Lincoln Krohn contributed items to the time capsule that is the building's cornerstone. Now it is up to the next generation to ensure that the story of the Loewys, a quintessentially American story of surviving the unthinkable without losing oneself, lives on in the building that exists as a monument to their courage and their tenacity, and to that of the Jewish people.

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Summary

333 E Portland St Synagogue Beth Hebrew is Phoenix based place and this enity listed in Synagogue category. Located at 333 E Portland St AZ 85004. Contact phone number of 333 E Portland St Synagogue Beth Hebrew: (602) 625-6562