Beth Israel

BETH ISRAEL CONGREGATION

The Jewish community in Brunswick was never large enough to have a weekly service, which requires a minyan (ten or more male Jews, age 13 and over). Even so, fewer than ten could pray together omitting some part of the ritual.

Sometimes the local congregation would go to Baltimore for religious services at the home of a friend. Sometimes they would travel to (or have guests from) neighboring Jewish communities such as Frederick, Hagerstown, Baltimore, and Charles Town, W.Va., for a regular service or special celebration such as a Bar Mitzvah (the ceremony at which a 13-year old Jewish boy reaches religious adulthood).

HIMAN N. WERNTZ

Himan N. Werntz was an immigrant from Utena, Lithuania, shortly after 1900. He was not an ordained rabbi, but he was a religious and ethical man, learned in Jewish law. He became the local leader.

Mr. Werntz was qualified to prepare Kosher chickens for BrunswickJews. To become a "sochet," to kill animals and fowl for food in the prescribed manner, requires a high degree of piety, knowledge, and technical skill, but not rabbinical ordination.

SYNAGOGUE BUILT

Charles Barnard Karn, local contractor, built in 1917 the Beth Israel Congregation's synagogue, the first in Frederick County, on "A" Street in Brunswick. A May 12, 1959, deed transferred the Synagogue from Himan N. Werntz, surviving trustee for Beth Israel Congregation, to Irvin H. Kolker and Nathan Winter, business partners owning Peoples Home Furnishers. Money from the sale of the property was given to charity.

When the synagogue was no longer in use for religious purposes, various adaptive uses were made of it. The chronology of these uses may not be exact: Dr. Charles Pruitt opened his first office in Brunswick in this building on the main floor in about 1947. Th`` Public Health Clinic was at one time located on the lower level. Dr. Kao also used the building briefly. It served as Red Cross headquarters, and the late dentist Paul Shafer started his practice upstairs. The main floor has been used for storage, and the basement was converted to an apartment.

S - Earl L. Baker, grandson of H. N. Werntz

- Amos Kaplon tape

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