Aaron Feuerstein and Young Israel of Brookline

Readers of Jewish Rhode Island might have noticed Aaron Feuerstein’s obituary, published in the New York Times and other newspapers on Nov. 6.  The former owner of Malden Mills was portrayed as a corporate leader who refused to leave Massachusetts or abandon his workers after a fire destroyed his Lawrence plant in 1995.

In some sense a national hero, Feuerstein was invited to sit next to First Lady Hillary Clinton at the 1996 State of the Union address.

The obituary in the Times also mentioned Feuerstein’s lifelong affiliation with Young Israel of Brookline, an Orthodox congregation whose synagogue was destroyed by fire only a year before the textile factory burned.

I interviewed Feuerstein at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, in July 1998 regarding his leadership of Young Israel.  The new synagogue, which was built on the same site as the old one, on Green Street, near Coolidge Corner, was among the most architecturally distinguished of the late 20th century.  Indeed, it endures as one of the most impressive of the past 40 years.

In addition to Feuerstein, I interviewed his late sister-in-law, Shirley; Young Israel’s rabbi, Gershon Gewirtz; several lay leaders; and, in great depth, the Boston architect who received the challenging commission.

Although I soon wrote a lengthy article about the wonderful new synagogue, it has not yet been published in a national journal on American Jewish history.

Assuming that the depth of my research and the quality of my writing were at least satisfactory, what was the problem?  Editors told me that my topic was too fresh.  Perhaps after 30 or 40 years, my subject would merit historical interpretation!

Aaron Feuerstein’s grandfather, Henry, who had emigrated from Hungary to New York City in about 1890, at 15 years of age, became a peddler and then a real estate investor.  In 1906, he purchased Malden Knitting Mills for $30,000, and moved his young family to that city.

Eventually, Henry’s son, Samuel, succeeded him, and in 1924 he moved with his family to Brookline.  Aaron, born the following year, lived most of his life there.

Jews had begun settling in Brookline in about 1915.  Ohabei Shalom, a Reform congregation founded in Boston in 1842, relocated there in 1928.  Kehillath Israel, an Orthodox congregation, was organized in Brookline in 1925.  Henry Feuerstein became a member, but when it affiliated with the Conservative movement a year later, he decided to help found an Orthodox congregation, Sons of Israel.

A home at 67 Fuller St. was used as a synagogue until 1953, when another residence was purchased, at 62 Green St., and the congregation was reorganized as Young Israel of Brookline.  Within a few years, membership grew to 100 families, so a wing was added to the remodeled structure.

By the early 1960s, following further growth and a fundraising goal of $250,000, the congregation demolished its former home to build a larger and more suitable structure on the same site on Green Street.  Congregational leaders did not yet sense, however, that architectural quality was a high priority.

If considering only local architects, they might have sought out Samuel Glaser, an accomplished modernist who designed the magnificent Congregation B’nai Israel synagogue, in Woonsocket, which was dedicated in 1962.  Instead, they hired another MIT alumnus, Sanford Greenfield, who built a synagogue for 500 congregants on two levels.  Sadly, this structure, and most its Torahs, were destroyed by a fire on Jan. 11, 1994.

The Feuerstein family, which guided the rebuilding effort and made the largest monetary gift, truly deferred to “Young Israel,” letting younger congregational leaders consider many architectural questions.

Norman Kram, a New York native and a civil and structural engineer who had a graduate degree in engineering from MIT and another in business from Harvard, led the architecture committee.  Another key member was David Kahan, a Brooklyn, New York, native and Yale Law graduate, who practiced in Boston.  Still another was Fay Grajower, a native New Yorker with a master’s degree from Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts, who sought a creative challenge.

But these young and adventurous leaders, whom I interviewed, did not yet know where to turn to conceptualize or fashion their building.  (This seems astonishing in retrospect because many of North America’s leading architects, including Peter Eisenman, Maurine Finegold, James Freed, Frank Gehry, Richard Meier, James Polshek, Robert Stern and Moshe Safdie, were at least nominally Jews.)

The Young Israel leaders contacted 77 architects, mostly in Massachusetts.  More than 30 were not available or interested.  A modest budget, of no more than $4 million, may have been a factor.  Also, the building’s proposed occupancy date of August 1995 may have seemed too soon.

Fortunately, an ideal architect was identified, and he soon expressed extraordinary interest in the project.

Graham Gund had never designed a synagogue, perhaps had visited only a few, and was not an Orthodox Jew.  Indeed, he was an Episcopalian and had never built a house of worship.  Yet this architect was so curious about, and eager for, Young Israel’s commission that, soon after receiving it, he traveled to Israel, at his own expense, to learn as much as possible about synagogues and possibly Jews!

Perhaps I should also mention that Gund, a native of Cleveland, has a Rhode Island connection.  After graduating from Kenyon College and before entering Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, he briefly studied at the Rhode Island School of Design.  Indeed, at one point during his career, he unsuccessfully sought a RISD commission.  Too bad for Little Rhody!

The talented Gund soon became one of the most accomplished young architects in New England, and soon accepted commissions for a rich variety of structures – primarily cultural and academic – in numerous states.  He and his sister, Agnes, are also renowned art collectors and philanthropists, and have been especially generous to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of Modern Art, respectively.

There isn’t sufficient space here to explain why Gund’s interpretation of synagogue architecture – functional, beautiful and modest – is so compelling. But Aaron Feuerstein, along with many other Young Israel congregants, was deeply moved by the architect’s artistry and humility.

Please do yourself a favor, and go have a look or attend a service.

GEORGE M. GOODWIN of Providence, is the editor of Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes.