A questionable future
Apr 20, 2018When he was young, he remembers the Jewish High Holidays were abundant with traditional foods, family and friends and, unlike today, the synagogue was filled to its capacity and beyond with some 150 families.Today, there about 20 Jewish families attending services once a month at the only temple remaining in the Mon Valley, Temple Beth Am, located on Watkins Street in Monessen. The future is uncertain.A widower whose three children now live in different areas of the country, he admits it’s sad. “There’s been a Jewish presence in the Valley from the late 1800s. When I was young, during High Holidays, all 30 rows were filled with people, and chairs had to be set up in the vestibule.”Kneseth Israel was the temple in Monessen when Bergstein was young. It was incorporated in 1906 and the building was located on Schoonmaker Avenue. In 1952, ground was broken for a new building on Watkins Street in Monessen, which opened in 1953. That building is still in use today. In 1967, the Rodef Shalom congregation in Charleroi merged with Kneseth, forming a new congregation. The Kneseth synagogue was renamed Temple Beth Am, or “house for all.” The synagogue serves families in Charleroi, Belle Vernon, Monessen, Monongahela and Donora.Walking through Temple Beth Am today, there are four classrooms filled with desks, but no students. The last young person graduated about 10 years ago. The photos on the bulletin board are reminders of the rich congregational life that existed. Now, according to Bergstein, there aren’t any Jewish students in the Monessen School District. +4 Photos on a bulletin board in one of the classrooms are a reminder of when the school was filled with children. Holly Tonini“Family members died, moved to Pittsburgh, moved to be with children. Very few children stayed here,” Bergstein explains. “The population has dwindled by two-thirds in this Valley. When it was just the Monessen synagogue in the 1950s and ’60s, it had 150 families; now when you combine them all – it’s just 20 families in the whole V... (Observer-Reporter)
