(Jewish Group) Inside the last days of a small-town synagogue
In a quiet room of a once bustling Texas synagogue, Laura Romine sits alone, pulling dusty books off the library shelves. She carefully logs each title and author: “A Child’s History of Jewish Life” by Dorothy Zeligs, “Leo Rosten’s Treasury of Jewish Quotations,” Bernard Malamud’s “The Fixer.”
Romine, 60, has spent hours each week over the last six months going from room to room, logging 640 books and about as many other items: star-shaped Seder plates, oil paintings, a ping-pong table, guest books and, of course, Torahs. There are three holy scrolls that belong to Temple Emanu-El in Longview, Texas, and they, like everything else — including the large, mid-century synagogue building, dedicated in 1957 — have to go.
Romine is one the last seven members of the synagogue, a Reform congregation which for decades was a hub of Jewish life in East Texas. She and the others are deep into the painful process of shutting the sanctuary doors for good.
“So many interesting people came through these doors,” she told me during a recent visit. “People with so much intelligence and people who contributed to the community. I don’t want people like that forgotten.”
“There are so few of us now,” she added. “It’s not just a place of worship. It’s truly like a family.”
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