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Friday June 29, 2007

Adieu, pews — Beth Ami undergoes overdue revamp

by joe eskenazi
staff writer

At Santa Rosa’s Congregation Beth Ami, when someone tells you to take a seat, they mean it.

Row after row of solid oak pews adorned with royal blue upholstery sit forlornly in the Conservative shul’s parking lot, waiting for a new home. Without question, synagogue president Andy Fleming enjoys having a pew to himself for lunch under the sun. But he would be more than glad to give up his seat to anyone who wants to load a 10- or 22-foot pew onto a truck and haul it off.

Like, now.

The parking lot pew proliferation is the most visible sign that change is afoot at Beth Ami, where 45 years of poor interior design is being remedied via a few thousand swings of the sledgehammer.

After several years of fundraising, the congregation has pulled the trigger on a complete gutting and remodeling of its sanctuary, a move that seems to have inspired outbreaks of “Ding dong, the witch is dead”-type joy from congregants.

“We finally got our roof fixed, but there were stains on the walls,” recalls board member and 25-year congregant Richard Kahn. “The lighting was lousy, you just couldn’t see anything in there. The ventilation was lousy. The acoustic engineering was non-existent.”

Done yet? Far from it. Kahn is just getting warmed up.

“We had the worst ugly yellow curtain separating the sanctuary and social hall,” he continued. “And once the fire marshal made us treat it, it stank to high heaven for a year. It just reeked. People probably can’t wait to jump up and down on that thing.”

The acrid, tear-inducing chemical odor of the fire-treated curtain is not a fond memory for Rabbi George Schlesinger either.

“No one could figure out how get rid of that odor,” he said.

Like his congregants, Schlesinger has a number of war stories about the shortcomings of his synagogue’s aging sanctuary. There was the 2001 bat mitzvah when the since-repaired roof gave way and well-dressed congregants got drenched and had to rush to the right side of the room. And, not unlike a baseball grounds crew, temple staff and volunteers had to blanket the sanctuary’s left half with tarps whenever a serious rainstorm blew into town.

Kahn notes that there was never a bar mitzvah rainout, but there were several close calls. Now it’s no longer something for him to worry about.

It will cost somewhere between $500,000 and $600,000 to revamp the sanctuary, social hall and kitchen. The sanctuary, however, should be ready to go by early August. If not, there’s a problem —no, not rain. Bar mitzvahs are scheduled.

The new sanctuary will feature rounded, amphitheater-like seating and no bimah (which disabled congregants could not mount and was largely unnecessary). The lighting will be warm and natural, and it will have bona fide acoustics. And there will be no ugly yellow curtain.

“The single most important input from congregants was to get rid of that curtain,” said Fleming.

Perhaps the synagogue could have auctioned off the opportunity to shred it with a machete. “I suggested something like that, but I don’t think anybody took me seriously,” Schlesinger said.

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