The Afterlife of Sacred Buildings

At one time, scores of people regularly came to services at Temple Hadar Israel in New Castle, Pennsylvania, which dates back to 1926 and even earlier if you count the first organized congregation in the area. After it closed for good in 2017, people still came to that building, but for occupational-therapy treatments, administered by the wife of the building’s buyer. Members of a nondenominational Christian church (Whole Truth Ministries) also came there for twice-weekly services. There are now only “fifty-two Jewish people in the community, of which there may be fifteen to twenty active congregants,” said Samuel M. Bernstine, a former president of Temple Hadar Israel. “We struggled to get a minion every week.”