L'Shem: Welcome to L'Shem

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Welcome to L'Shem

L'Shem is the blog of Temple Shalom in Wheeling, W.Va. Not only will we publish all the news from West Virginia's oldest Jewish congregation — and one of the oldest Reform congregations in America — we will give you, the members of the Temple Shalom family, a chance to write as well. After all, this is your blog, too.

The title of this blog, L'Shem, which is Hebrew for "In the name of," is taken from the original name of the congregation, L'Shem Shomayim (In the name if Heaven).

We look forward to hearing your stories about life in the congregation, a piece of Temple Shalom history, a funny anecdote, a midrash, an innovative idea, some interesting photo or video clip. We won't get political here, and there certainly won't be any personal attacks, but L'Shem does promises to be a pretty open forum.

Send your submissions to me, Lee Chottiner, at lichott@yahoo.com. And thanks again for checking in at L'Shem. Please come back often let us know how we're doing.

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About our Congregation

Temple Shalom was founded in 1849, which means the congregation predates West Virginia statehood. (West Virginia broke away from Virginia during the Civil War.)

The Congregation has evolved since being chartered by its earliest members, mostly German Jews. Its first permanent home was the historic Eoff Street Temple, in downtown Wheeling. By 1958, though, the congregation moved to the peaceful Woodsdale neighborhood of town, taking up residency in a new single story building along the Bethany Pike with a domed sanctuary (which became the signature feature of the synagogue), and took the name Woodsdale Temple. By 1970, as the Wheeling Jewish population declined. the Woodsdale Temple merged with the Conservative Synagogue of Israel on Edgington Lane. The new congregation, housed in the Woodsdale Temple building, adopted the name Temple Shalom to reflect its new beginning, though it continued to use the historic L'Shem Shomayim name in its correspondence, its semi-annual directory, to name just a few uses.

Temple Shalom has seen its share of history. Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, the architect of Reform Judaism in America, visited the Wheeling community in the 1850s and wrote about the experience. Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, one of the most influential American Zionists of the 20th century, began his rabbinate at the Eoff Street Temple, and Rabbi Jacob Rader Marcus, the father of American Jewish historical research and the founder of the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati, grew up in Wheeling and was confirmed at the Eoff Street Temple.

Today, Temple Shalom is a small congregation, approximately 75 families, but it remains a vibrant community with an active religious school and adult education program. Its members routinely reach out to the Greater Wheeling community of which they are an integral part, and the Shabbat services and Saturday Torah study are always well attended for the size of the community.

Unlike other small town congregations which have closed their doors, Temple Shalom has no intention of fading away. It was a test congregation for the new Mishkan T'filah siddur; it has experimented with parents and children learning together at Sunday religious school, and it is the only Jewish congregation in northern West Virginia or Western Pennsylvania to regularly welcome lecturers and entertainers sent to America by Soul Train, an Israel-based program, the mission of which is to bring Jewish culture to outlying Jewish communities.