Ohave Shalom Synagogue, also referred to as the Woodridge Shul, is an

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pag ...

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

synagogue A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It is a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as wed ...

, that practices in the

Ashkenazi Ashkenazi Jews ( ; also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim) form a distinct subgroup of the Jewish diaspora, that Ethnogenesis, emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium Common era, CE. They traditionally spe ...

rite Rite may refer to: Religion * Ritual, an established ceremonious act * Rite (Christianity), sacred rituals in the Christian religion * Ritual family, Christian liturgical traditions; often also called ''liturgical rites'' * Catholic particular ch ...

, located at 14 Maurice Rose Street in Woodridge, in the

Catskills The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province and subrange of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined a ...

region of southeast

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, in the United States. The brick building was erected in 1930 by a splinter group from what was then the village's only synagogue, later absorbed into Ohave Shalom itself. Its interior is decorated with paintings on religious themes. It was not the only synagogue in Sullivan County ever built with such decoration, but it is the only one where the paintings survive, although they are not as extensive as they were when the synagogue was built. The synagogue was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on November 22, 2000. In 2020, the congregation launched an urgent appeal for funds to support the ongoing maintenance and restoration of the historical synagogue.

Building

The synagogue is a five-by-three-

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

one-story building on a raised basement. It is faced in decorative golden brick with

quoin Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th-century encyclopedia, ...

s, banding and window trim. The front facade has a projecting extrance

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cu ...

with

pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In an ...

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

and raking

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

. In the tympanum is a small round

stained glass Stained glass refers to coloured glass as a material or art and architectural works created from it. Although it is traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensio ...

window. The main entrance runs the length of the front facade. It consists of slightly recessed triple pairs of wooden doors beneath a tripartite window. The enframements resemble stone and the smaller windows have keystone lintels. Between the doors and windows, six decorative plaques frame a central scroll motif. Above the windows are

Stars of David The Star of David (, , ) is a symbol generally recognized as representing both Jewish identity and Judaism. Its shape is that of a hexagram: the compound of two equilateral triangles. A derivation of the Seal of Solomon was used for decora ...

. All but one of the side bays has a stained-glass window. The front bay on either elevation has a window like the end bays on the facade. The rear elevation has nearly full-height projecting bays with gable roof, each containing a stained-glass window like the ones along the sides. There is also a small shed-roofed addition that serves as the

Torah ark A Torah ark (also known as the ''hekhal'', , or ''aron qodesh'', ) is an ornamental chamber in the synagogue that houses the Torah scrolls. History The ark is also known as the ''ark of law'', or in Hebrew the ''Aron Kodesh'' () or ''aron ha-Kod ...

. The first floor is divided into a small lobby and the sanctuary, laid out in Orthodox tradition, with a central hexagonal bimah surrounded on three sides by wooden pews. A gallery that extends over the western third provides seating for women. Both the ark platform and bimah are made of wood with turned posts and rounded tops. The ark is flanked with columns and topped with Lions of Judah holding the

Ten Commandments The Ten Commandments (), or the Decalogue (from Latin , from Ancient Greek , ), are religious and ethical directives, structured as a covenant document, that, according to the Hebrew Bible, were given by YHWH to Moses. The text of the Ten ...

. Above it the stained glass window has large sunbursts and Stars of David. Three decorative

chandelier A chandelier () is an ornamental lighting device, typically with spreading branched supports for multiple lights, designed to be hung from the ceiling. Chandeliers are often ornate, and they were originally designed to hold candles, but now inca ...

s hang from the barrel-vaulted ceiling. The paintings are not as extensive as they originally were, but cover several locations. Wall panels depict holy places in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

, a continuous

frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...

depicts the signs of the

zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north and south celestial latitude of the ecliptic – the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. Within this zodiac ...

, the gallery is backed with a

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

mural A mural is any piece of Graphic arts, graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' ...

, and the one surviving ceiling image is the center medallion, a radiating fan shape with gold border.

Aesthetics

Ohave Shalom combines features of traditional

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...

an synagogues and contemporary urban synagogue design. The former is reflected in the tripartite facade, meant to suggest the small corner towers of those synagogues. The latter is recalled by the large form and

Renaissance Revival Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th-century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range of ...

design.

History

Jews had begun arriving in the area of what was then known as Centerville around 1900. They overcame early

prejudice Prejudice can be an affect (psychology), affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived In-group and out-group, social group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavourable) evaluation or classifi ...

sufficiently for some to have been among the village's founding officers when it incorporated. Centerville's first synagogue, Anshei Centerville, was established in 1903. Centerville was renamed Woodridge in 1917 in the hopes of attracting more summer visitors. By the 1930s, the village was primarily Jewish, and the center of that community within Sullivan County. A dispute among the congregants of Anshei Centerville over who would be the ritual slaughterer of animals led the founders of Ohave Shalom — mostly urbane and affluent — to buy the land and build the present building. Six years later, Anshei Centerville merged with its offshoot. Its home, a short distance away, was used as a daily worship house and school. In the 1950s a more decorative brick veneer was added over the original painted concrete-block exterior. The original interior painting was in some cases, like the ceiling and reconfigured ark, painted over. In 1976 the original Anshei Centerville building was demolished, and a congregant named Max Cohen donated a house across the street from the synagogue to serve the functions it had. It has since been expanded to serve as a chapel and ''

mikvah A mikveh or mikvah (, ''mikva'ot'', ''mikvot'', or ( Ashkenazic) ''mikves'', lit., "a collection") is a bath used for ritual immersion in Judaism to achieve ritual purity. In Orthodox Judaism, these regulations are steadfastly adhered t ...

'', and also stores some of the interior decor of Anshei Centerville. That building is not considered a

contributing property In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic dist ...

to the NRHP listing since it is outside Ohave Shalom's period of significance.

Building

Aesthetics

History

References

Further reading