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Shared Memories of Temple Israel

RE: Temple Israel
My mother's family were members, likely charter members. Here is my mother's cookbook.

Susanne Peters 2022

9/12/04: Visited the site of my Bar Mitzvah almost 30 years to the day later. Fortunately, it was a Sunday and I was able to go inside. While the exterior of the building could use some minor maintenance, the interior is immaculate, especially the former Leon Fram Social Hall, which never looked as good when it was T.I. Gone is the green marble bimah foundation and the columns behind it, as well as the Chagall stained glass windows (presently at the W. Bloomfield location) but the old maroon seats are now a powder blue and the the former sanctuary has a very bright and modern and even welcoming look to it. Still hanging from the ceiling is the massive Star of David, which is welded into the overhead beams, and upon which myself and two of my boyhood friends used to climb down onto from the overhead ceiling pathways to eat donuts during Saturday school breaks. This drove Sammy (remember Sammy the custodian?) nuts!

The deacon told me they lost one of the Twelve Tribes stained glass windows (from the easterly entrance doors). I responded that this was ok as the Jews lost 10 of the 12 tribes.

As a professional photographer, I have been in just about every temple or synagogue that has served as Jewish facility since 1974, and in my opinion, This Temple Israel is the most architecturally beautiful of all our community houses of worship.

MJL

You hit pay dirt. My father was the executive secretary of Temple Israel from 1948 until his untimely death at the age of 45 in l960. Until the building on Manderson was built, services were held, not in the DIA but in the Masonic Temple, which was right nearby. My father had almost daily meetings with the architect, which I wrongly remembered as being built by Louis Kahn. The temple was started in either 1948 or 49 and was finished a year later. I am 59 years old so I played there as a child, knew rabbi Fram very well (it was only as an adult that I learned that he was gay). I was in the first Hebrew class taught by Rabbi Syme. I always loved the building but when I returned to see it in 1965 I realized what a jem it was. My name was Carole Kishner now Carole Zabar.

NN

Built. 1951. 1956. 1960.
Architect: William E. Kapp (who built Meadow Brook Hall(Rochester), The Music Hall (Detroit), and the Horace H. Rackham Bldg. in Ann Arbor)

First to be finished was the circular sanctuary of limestone crowned with a classical frieze and a copper cornice with palmettes. The lotus columns flanking the Egyptoid entrance allude to the Middle Eastern origins of the Jews.

The social hall was built in 1956 and the educational wing added in 1960.

The sanctuary seats 1,200 under a beveled ceiling with overly slender Ionic columns. The congregation sold the bldg. to Word of Faith Temple and moved to West Bloomfield in 1980. It is said that this late Art Deco masterpiece was influenced by the stately apartment bldgs. in the Palmer Park area adjacent. References to the 1936 Rackham Bldg. by Kapp in Ann Arbor are also obvious.
- Arnie P

This building was the first one for Temple Israel. I believe it was built in the early 1950's. Before that the congregation met at the Detroit Institute of Art. My uncles and parents were charter members. I was married in this building in 1957 by Rabbi Fram, who was the original rabbi. It was a beautiful building, but the congregation moved north and the Temple followed.
- Susan

I believe that Temple Israel was the last Reform temple to remain in Detroit.
- Arlene