Rabbi Elissa Sachs-Kohen recently stood on Baltimore Hebrew Congregation’s bimah, delivering a sermon about that week’s Torah reading. Behind her was a 5-by-14-foot needlepoint tapestry covering the doors of the Torah ark and encompassing the ancient Israelites’ 40 years in the wilderness. The undulating line at the tapestry’s bottom conveys the continuity of Jewish history, correlating the events of the desert experience with what came before and after.
Architect Percival Goodman, who designed BHC’s 72-year-old home at 7401 Park Heights Ave., felt the tapestry — as well as other artworks permanently installed in the building — were critical to expressing religious identity in the 20th century. He also believed incorporating representational art into the facility’s design was a way to distinguish the Reform congregation from more traditional synagogues.
When BHC’s building — the first of Northwest Baltimore’s post-war synagogues — was dedicated in November of 1951, a Sun article described the design, with its built-in art, as “a significant departure from previous synagogue designs both in Baltimore and the United States.”
Goodman asked Baltimore artist Amalie Rothschild, a BHC member, to design the doors for the ark in the new sanctuary. Goodman and Rothschild decided on a contemporary look using vivid colors and fluid shapes — contrasting with the room’s neutral colors and geometric shapes — to make the ark the sanctuary’s focal point.
Rothschild’s design used the multi-faceted perspective of analytic cubism. She selected the tapestry’s color palette from Exodus 25:3: “And this is the offering which ye shall take of them: gold and silver and brass; and blue and purple and scarlet and fine linen.”
Visual artist Arnold Henry Bergier created three pieces for the sanctuary. His ner tamid consists of two-winged, semi-abstract cherubim whose hands merge to form a torch from which the eternal flame burns. Bergier required three months to make the 175-pound menorah made of 2,000 pieces of welding rods and steel mounted on the bimah wall. His chanukiah, now in BHC’s Adalman lobby, shows the Maccabean family grappling with the principle of evil, as represented by a serpent or dragon.
BHC’s lobby is dominated by artist William M. Halsey’s wall-length mural based on passages from Exodus 3 and incorporating elements of modernism, abstract expressionism and post-cubism.
Meanwhile, Russian-born artist George Aarons’ large sculptures on BHC’s Park Heights façade represent “The Basic Ideals of Judaism,” with images of the Ten Commandments and Creation surrounded by those of the Patriarchs and significant Biblical events and principles. Aarons called the piece “the culmination of my career.”
At the opposite end of BHC’s building is the Hoffberger Chapel, which was completed in March of 1969. The chapel’s 16 stained glass windows, by Israeli artist Nissan Engel, trace the history of the Jewish people from Creation to the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel.
Initially, the works of Goodman and the artists were not universally embraced by the BHC community, starting with the building’s basic design. When BHC bought the property, the leadership suggested the construction of a temple that blended in with the surrounding buildings. The late Rabbi Morris Lieberman, BHC’s spiritual leader at the time, recalled that Goodman sarcastically told the leadership if that was their objective, they should “build a temple that will be half-bad Colonial and half-bad Tudor. … We could find no answer to this argument, followed his advice and are very happy about it.”
In addition, Rothschild’s ark cover design was controversial among some congregants and decisionmakers. To gain congregational buy-in, Goodman and Rothschild decided to create the ark door covers in needlepoint, partly to engage the BHC community in their construction. Over a three-month period, almost 50 women worked to create the tapestry panels.
At the conclusion of the project, sisterhood president Sophie Marx Spear said, “Our members commenced work in Mrs. Rothschild’s home [and moved to the sanctuary to complete it]. There was a profound feeling about having this work of our hands adorn the doors of our ark.”
While BHC prepared to move from the Madison Avenue Temple downtown to its new home — only six years after the end of the Holocaust and three years after Israel’s founding — Rabbi Lieberman called the facility “an affirmation of our faith in our people Israel. In our generation, monstrous tyranny assaulted us and wrought upon us enormous injury. … [The building] symbolizes our confidence in the future of our people. It bespeaks our belief in the imperishability of Jewish life.”
Julie Wohl, BHC’s education director today, believes the building’s architectural art continues to contribute to that affirmation of faith.
“The permanent sculptures, the wall hangings, the ritual artifacts, even the carpeting, are all designed to deepen the spiritual experience of being in the space,” she said. “They are essential components of that experience.”
Jonathan Shorr is a local freelance writer.
A committed philanthropist and community leader, Russel was president of R&H Motors.
The mother of four was a native of Winchester, Virginia, who spent most of her life in Northwest Baltimore.
The Columbia resident worked on the Gemini and Apollo space missions.
A St. Louis native, Edelman served as ambassador to the central African nation from 1987 to 1989.