Swapping a synagogue for a school: Auckland Jewry makes a brave move

DEBORAH STONE returns to her childhood community as it abandons its heritage synagogue for a school-focused site.

I was too young to have a vocabulary for architecture when the Auckland Hebrew Congregation (AHC) moved into the monumental Greys Avenue synagogue in 1968. But I remember the light.

As a pre-schooler, I peered into the dim recesses of the old synagogue from the women’s gallery to watch my father sing haftorah.

Then we moved to the magnificent edifice designed by architect John Goldwater with its 360° clerestory windows and shining three-dimension bubble glass Star of David chandelier. The ark was a modernist marvel, carved with the 10 commandments and abstracted symbols of the 12 tribes in Hinuera stone, a volcanic material both indigenous to New Zealand and evocative of Jerusalem stone.

The synagogue was flooded with light and space – often much more space than the sparsely-attended services needed. It made going to shul feel grand and important.

I spent much of my youth in the Greys Avenue community centre, which contained two synagogues, the Hebrew school, community halls, and youth group facilities.

Here I learned the alefbet, ducked boys pelting each other with olives from the ironic peace symbol, danced at my first disco, chanted my first kol nidre.

Here I wore my first long dress as a flower girl at my first wedding, enviously watched my brothers called to the Torah for the first time, and walked in a tear-stained blur through the grand doors for the funeral that honoured my father as a former congregational president.

This building has been the centre of Jewish life in Auckland for almost my entire life.

But last Friday night the Greys Avenue synagogue ended its reign. The community held its first service at its new premises, a converted girls’ school in the eastern suburbs. It was due to hold a farewell event last Sunday at Greys Avenue but the event was postponed due to the cyclone that has battered Auckland this week.

I meet AHC president Garth Cohen at the new premises on classy Remuera Road. He and I were at Hebrew School together, members of a class of nine regulars, with a couple of extras who made an occasional appearance.

Cohen is the only member of that cohort who remained in Auckland and married another Auckland Jew. The community is so small that moving or intermarriage often seem like the only options. I remember complaining that dating the boys in my Hebrew School class would be like dating my brothers (not that any of them ever asked).

We walk through the rambling school site, where a science block is being demolished to make way for a communal courtyard. It has classrooms, playground equipment and a swimming pool but for now the synagogue is a makeshift affair with a portable ark and bima in the former living room of a Victorian house.

The community has swapped its beautiful heritage-listed synagogue for the school site, prioritising its small school and capacity to build youth and cultural facilities over a grand building for services.

“It’s a gamble,” Cohen admits. “We are investing in the youth and in creating a place we have tentatively called ‘Jewish Auckland’, somewhere we can have a cultural and social club like Hakoah in Sydney or the JCCs in the US. Hopefully, it will bring in people who might not be interested in a religious service but want to be part of the community.”

The site is now home to Kadimah College, New Zealand’s only Jewish day school, with 150 primary and middle school students, about half of them Jewish. Little blonde girls wearing Star of David polo shirts and Asian boys wearing kippot are commonplace here.

Kadimah started at Greys Avenue in the early 1970s and has battled for years to function in a building that was never designed for a school. You can almost hear the sigh of relief at the space the new site offers for students and teachers.

Key to the move is location. Auckland is geographically like Sydney and not easy to get around. The Greys Avenue synagogue was positioned in the city’s centre but most of the community lives in the eastern suburbs.

“It puts the school in a much better location, and we expect it to grow,” Cohen says.

In the short term, the community is willing to sacrifice its big synagogue to provide for the school. But the vision is for a community centre that will one day house both the AHC’s orthodox synagogue (for a non-observant but nominally-orthodox community of 600) and the progressive Beth Shalom synagogue (a community of about 300): an unprecedented collaboration still under negotiation. There are also plans for a mikvah, a kosher deli and café, facilities for Auckland’s youth groups, and a cultural centre.

The Greys Avenue synagogue will be decommissioned and the community plans to sell the site, although a heritage listing on the building could complicate future use.

And what of the Star of David chandelier and Hinuera stone ark that I spent childhood services looking at? For now, they will go into storage but one day – when the funds can be raised – they will grace a new architecturally-designed synagogue in Remuera Road.

Top image: The Auckland synagogue designed by John Goldwater (AHC) Other images: New Auckland Jewish Community Centre (Deborah Stone)