[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 144 (Thursday, October 23, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2055]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       HONORING RIVERDALE TEMPLE

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ELIOT L. ENGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, October 22, 1997

  Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, the Riverdale Temple, the largest reform 
Jewish house of worship in the Bronx, is celebrating its 50th 
anniversary. It was founded in 1947 when a small group met to talk 
about a new liberal Jewish congregation. Later that year a charter was 
signed and 67 families founded the temple.
  The Honorable Francis J. Bloustein was named first president and a 
dynamic rabbi, Charles E. Shulman, came from Chicago to become the 
first of a distinguished line of rabbis for the congregants.
  The temple had its meetings in the Arrowhead Inn until it was torn 
down in 1952, and, until its own building was completed in 1954, at 
various churches in the neighborhood. The temple acquired a Torah which 
had been damaged during the Kristallnacht terror in Germany and today 
holds an honored place in the Holy Ark. Then Vice President Gerald 
Ford, in 1973, donated a Torah mantle to the sanctuary.
  The Riverdale Temple now has more than 550 member families. It is 
affiliated with the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and is a 
patron of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
  The Riverdale Temple, in the words of Rabbi Shulman, strived to be 
``a great Jewish community in Riverdale, great not only in numbers, but 
also in knowledge and spirit and faith.'' The temple and its 
congregation has succeeded admirably. It has grown and it has affirmed 
the high principles of Jewish ethics. I congratulate Riverdale Temple 
on its 50th anniversary and wish it many more years as a central part 
of our community.

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