Temple Sinai celebrates its 60th anniversary

The founding members of Temple Sinai, in Cranston, each had individual reasons for taking the first steps, but they were united in one goal: starting a Reform temple that would serve the growing Rhode Island Jewish population outside of Providence.

Their determined efforts were successful: On Saturday, Nov. 3, Temple Sinai will celebrate its 60th anniversary with a gala event.

Phil Segal, 92, the temple’s second president, still lives in the same house in Cranston as he did 60 years ago, and he’s as dedicated to the temple now as he was in 1958, when 10 couples, including he and his wife, Barbara, attended a series of exploratory meetings.

“We all wanted a Reform [Hebrew] school for the kids. We wanted a local temple,” Segal said of his and Barbara’s motivation.

Founder Ada Winsten, 83, and her first husband, the late Jordan Tanebaum, also had personal reasons for joining the undertaking.

“I wanted my children to have a Jewish community,” Winsten recalled.

So, after hearing about the group, they got involved too.

  Winsten, who arrived in the United States at 15, after her family fled Nazi-occupied Poland in 1939, traveling first to Lithuania and then to Shanghai, has never looked back.

Sinai, she said, was the first real Jewish community she was a part of, and she and her husband embraced the temple: She joined the sisterhood and he served in the brotherhood and on the temple’s board of directors.

Winsten, who still works out of her Providence home as a psychotherapist and social worker, said they especially enjoyed spending Friday nights at services in those early years and then going to people’s homes for an Oneg Shabbat.

“I formed my closest friends from those days.  … I formed lifelong relationships,” she said.

The founders’ hard work eventually led to a ground-breaking on June 4, 1961, and to the temple being dedicated on May 10, 1963, but it all began with that first exploratory meeting at Allen White’s house, according to an article written in 1983 by the temple’s then-librarian, the late Edith Grant, for the silver anniversary celebration.

A larger gathering was then held, in February 1958, at the Nelson Aldrich School, in Warwick, where the group heard from Rabbi Albert Baum, the director of New Congregations at the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the national Reform group.

“We kind of just grew from there,” Segal said, adding that they received help from many sources, including Temple Beth-El, in Providence, which lent the fledgling congregation a Torah and prayer books.

At first, the congregation rented space at the Garden City School, and eventually at Greenwood Hall, at the Greenwood Country Club, in Warwick.

The temple thrived under part-time Rabbi Robert Schenkerman.

“He knew how to sell being Jewish, and drew Reform, Conservative, Orthodox and unaffiliated Jews,” Winsten said. “Everyone loved him and he grew the temple.”

By March 1959, the trustees gave the green light to seek a full-time rabbi – Rabbi Donald Heskins was hired that September – and to launch a building campaign.

Segal said $150,000 was raised, and an 11.6-acre parcel was purchased at 30 Hagen Ave., in Cranston, a site considered ideal for the congregation’s target area: Cranston, Warwick and East Greenwich.

To emphasize its target demographic, the new shul was originally named Temple Sinai Suburban Reform Temple.

The new temple thrived, despite occasional differences of opinion, Segal said.

“We had a big argument over raising the dues [from $10] to $50,” he recalled. There was a “big temple meeting,” and the higher dues prevailed, he said.

Segal and Winsten said that throughout its history, the temple has been a focal point in the lives of its congregants.

Sinai “has always been a big part of my life,” said Segal, the former president of the Almacs supermarket chain. “It’s a great temple. It’s had good leaders to keep it going.”

For Winsten, the temple has been a place of joy and comfort. Her son Paul and daughter Martha became B’nai Mitzvah there, her daughter was married there, and Winsten held the funeral service for her first husband there in 1969, after he died at age 41. The 500 people who filled the temple for his service deeply touched her.

“It was a place that was very meaningful to me and my family,” Winsten said. 

Dottie Swajian, the temple administrator for the last 19 years, described Temple Sinai as a caring place.

“We are a warm and welcoming community. These are the most wonderful and special people,” she said.

Jeffrey Goldwasser, the rabbi since 2014, is upbeat about the temple, which is moving into the future with new programs and a restructured religious school.

“This year, we introduced a new model for our religious school to keep it active and engaging, even at a time when we have fewer students than in the past. By putting more focus on all-school projects for children of all ages, we are keeping Jewish learning fun and transformative,” he said.

In addition to religious observances and the religious school, Temple Sinai has a sisterhood, a brotherhood, the Kosher Senior Café, an adult chorus, a tikkum olam (social action) organization, a biblical garden, a youth group and a social worker. 

The 60th anniversary gala will be held at the Crowne Plaza Providence-Warwick, in Warwick, on Nov. 3, at 6:30 p.m. Tickets, $75, must be purchased in advance and include dinner and entertainment by the Nightlife Orchestra. For tickets and more information, contact temple administrator Dottie Swajian at 401-942-8350 or dottie@templesiniairi.org.

LARRY KESSLER (lkessler1@comcast.net) is a freelance writer based in North Attleboro.

Editor’s Note: To learn more about Temple Sinai, go to www.templesinairi.org. To read an interview with Rabbi Jeffrey Goldwasser and the full 1983 silver anniversary story, go to The Jewish Voice’s website, www.jvhri.org.