Shaarai’s Charter Shabbat

November 12, 2011

Shaarai’s Charter Shabbat to Take Place Nov. 18
Charter Shabbat is a relatively new tradition at Shaarai Shomayim. Begun in 2008, it recognizes and celebrates Shaarai’s long history and occurs on the Friday night closest to the date that Shaarai received its charter from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
This year’s Charter Shabbat Service will take place on Friday, Nov. 18 at 7:30 p.m., 155 years and one day after the congregation was formally established.
For this year’s celebration we are “… Remembering the Ladies” and taking a look back at what women were doing as our congregation grew and developed.
Rosa and Joseph Simon predate the existence of Congregation Shaarai Shomayin by half a century, but as they had Lancaster’s first and longest lasting 18th century Jewish household, Jewish life in Lancaster begins with them. Historians of Jewish women’s history tell us that Rosa and her colonial counterparts are credited with the perpetuation of Jewish life in America, at a time when it was a particular challenge to maintain Jewish households, to educate their children in the ways of their faith, and to find Jewish spouses for their children.  Rosa and Joseph were married for 49 years and had 10 children. They lie next to each other in the Shaarai Shomayim cemetery.
Women did not have formal membership when Shaarai Shomayim was established in 1856. But with the building of the congregation’s first house of worship in 1867 and the gradual movement toward adopting Classical Reform Judaism, slow and steady changes in women’s participation occurred. While it may have been a kind of “separate but equal” status, men and women sat together, widows were granted the right of membership, and the congregation’s Confirmation Classes in included girls.  Women established organizations for the benefit of the congregation, the local Jewish community, and the wider community as well. In 1919, the women of Shaarai Shomayim voted to join the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, the first national organization for Reform Jewish Women.
Surely, it is no coincidence that in the 1920s, the role of women within the congregation changed. After women had gained the right to vote nationally, Shaarai Shomayim women pressed for a leadership role within the congregation. In 1922 the size of the Board of Trustees was increased from 9 to 11, the two additional seats reserved for women. The congregation’s first female officer was Pauline Levine, who served as Financial Secretary for 25 years beginning in the 1940’s. By May of 1978 the by-laws were changed to read “The Board of Trustees shall be composed of 17 elected members consisting of men and women.“ That same year Frances Jean Ellison was elected President ofthe Congregation, the first female to lead our congregation, and 14 years after she had been Sisterhood President.