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TODAY’S JEWISH COMMUNITY

In 1955, Congregation Chevra Thilim voted to allow mixed seating while remaining Orthodox. Those who opposed the mixed seating sued, and the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled in their favor. As a result, the Conservative Congregation of New Orleans was founded in 1960 on Napoleon Avenue. The congregation grew slowly until 1977, when they moved to the suburb of Metairie, where they have prospered. The year before the move, the congregation adopted the name Tikvat Shalom, or Hope of Peace. Meanwhile, Chevra Thilim eventually adopted mixed seating and joined the Conservative movement. But, being uptown, membership continued to lag. Then, in 1999, the two congregations joined together again, in Metairie, and adopted the name Shir Chadash, or New Song.

The old Dryades Street neighborhood was deteriorating, and as early as the 1940s, Beth Israel began looking for new locations. In 1963, the corner of Canal Boulevard and Walker Street was purchased, and in 1971, Beth Israel moved to the new location. Today Beth Israel is the only congregation in the city offering services twice daily.

With the movement of many Jews to the suburb of Metairie, it was natural that the congregations would follow. The first to move was Gates of Prayer. On the weekend of September 5, 1975, the congregation celebrated the dedication of their new sanctuary, located at the intersection of West Esplanade Avenue and Richland Street. The charters of the other congregations provided that the congregations must be domiciled in Orleans Parish. Gates of Prayer, originally chartered in Lafayette City, then part of Jefferson Parish, had no such restriction in their constitution. These pictures reflect a recent renovation of the sanctuary.

In 1975, Rabbi Zelig Rivkin and his wife, Bluma, were sent to Louisiana as emissaries of the rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch. Chabad House was then established near Tulane University. In 1990, the Chabad Center of Metairie was established, with Rabbi Yossie and Chanie Nemes as emissaries, to serve the growing Jewish community in the New Orleans suburb. Chabad of Louisiana also operates a Jewish day school, Torah Academy, with classes from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade.

The Jewish Children’s Home was on this site until 1948, at which time the building became the Jewish Community Center. In the early 1960s, the old building was torn down and the new Jewish Community Center was built. Today the center provides numerous athletic and social activities as well as maintaining a vibrant preschool.

In 2001, a new Jewish community center was completed in Metairie to replace a smaller campus nearby. The new Metairie Jewish Community Center stands next door to Congregation Shir Chadash and across the street from Congregation Gates of Prayer. The expanded Metairie Jewish Community Center has quickly become a favorite gathering and activities location for the large proportion of Jews that live in the suburb.

An avid supporter of Israel, William Hess (b. 1947) has held leadership roles in the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA), Union of American Hebrew Congregations, The Jewish Agency for Israel, the Zionist Organization of American (ZOA), and many others. He was selected as the ZOA man of the year in 1982, and received the Simon Wiesenthal Center Community Service Award in 2001. As a past president of Temple Sinai, the oldest Reform congregation in New Orleans and one in which classical reform origins are still to be felt, William Hess has been a persistent advocate toward reclaiming some traditional Jewish customs. The first president to wear tallit and kippah on Sinai’s Bemah, to learn to chant Torah, and to lead mission after mission to Israel, Hess has been an ardent and determined advocate of the definition of Reform Judaism for the 21st century.