Every Friday and Saturday since the 1970s, dozens of Jews have ascended to the “shul in the sky” on the ninth floor of Water Tower Place to sing of their holy obligations as they touch the spine of their prayer books to the Torah scrolls, then brush the binding with their lips.
But faced with mounting debt and dwindling rolls, members of Congregation Kol Ami voted this week to honor their obligations to creditors by dissolving the 87-year-old congregation and placing their ritual objects on the auction block.
“Every year through some marvelous miracle, we’ve been able to find the money to keep going,” said temple president Henry Nussbaum. “To allow Congregation Kol Ami to die with dignity and to meet its obligations, we’re trying to dispose of our assets. … Kol Ami will be no more, which means 87 years of history will be no more.”
Among Kol Ami’s assets are its eternal light, Torah scrolls and the mahogany doors of its ark sculpted by the late Milton Horn, a Russian-born Chicago artist who critics said sought “a spiritual alternative to the increasing materialism of the 20th Century.”
Rabbi Dan Rabishaw, director of the local branch of the Union for Reform Judaism, the temple’s umbrella agency, said Kol Ami’s fate was not surprising because its model could not outlast a single generation.
But its dissolution also reflects the challenges that face Reform Judaism and Jewish communities in general. Kol Ami’s closure coincides with a massive downsizing earlier this year of the Union of Reform Judaism that saw 14 regional offices consolidated into four and about 40 rabbis laid off, including Rabishaw, whose job ends in May.
“Kol Ami served a great purpose for a long time,” Rabishaw said. “When you’re facing a global economic downturn where the money isn’t necessarily there, it’s hard to sustain something. I still think there’s a market for what they’ve been offering. I just don’t think that they could have done it.”
What Kol Ami offered was a sanctuary for adults proudly set in their ways — a place to study, pray and enjoy intimate friendships.
Members — whose ages range from 30 to 90 — put a premium on education, immersing themselves in intensive studies of the Torah and Talmud, conversations about films and literature. Their liturgy was a routine rarely disrupted or altered for special occasions such as bar or bat mitzvahs. But there was a lack of young blood.
“We liked being an adult congregation. That was our identity,” said Greg Ostfeld, 35, one of Kol Ami’s youngest members. “We recruited like-minded people. That may have been our downfall.”
Founded in 1922 as South Shore Temple at 72nd Street and Jeffery Boulevard, the reform synagogue is viewed by many scholars as an early hub for the creative liturgy movement, an effort among progressive Jews to make their religion more personal.
Between 1952 and 1962, Rabbi Ahron Opher integrated more English and less Hebrew into readings and songs. From 1971 to 1994, Rabbi Arnold Kaiman weaved into the liturgy Academy-Award winning tunes.
Under Kaiman, the congregation moved from the South Side location to Water Tower Place in the early 1970s. There it became the synagogue of choice for some movers and shakers living in the Loop and a destination for worship in the Windy City.
Despite its cachet — during the High Holidays, hotel concierges would often call Kol Ami to score last-minute tickets for Jewish tourists — its size lent a sense of intimacy and camaraderie for retirees, empty-nesters and single professionals living nearby.
“Our friendship encompassed more than coming to Shabbat services,” said Ferle Terry, a congregant who hides her age but describes herself as a “young senior.” When she came to Kol Ami 12 years ago, she “felt as though all of a sudden I had found family.”
Terry, Nussbaum and others hope to keep that family intact at one of several nearby congregations. Kol Ami has had offers to integrate some of its programs.
Rabbi Michael Sternfield of Congregation Sinai said he would welcome any Kol Ami congregants and has offered to continue their Torah study and Wednesday morning recitation of the kaddish. Congregation Sinai also would add the names of Kol Ami’s deceased on its memorial wall and remind survivors of yahrzeits, the anniversary of a death observed with candles and special prayers.
In addition to Sinai, Kol Ami congregants are looking at Temple Sholom on North Lake Shore Drive, Temple Emanuel on Sheridan Road and Anshe Emet on Broadway.
Though Nussbaum won’t endorse one congregation over another, he hopes a number of congregants migrate to the same destination. He said he feels a lot like Moses leading an exodus. But most important, he wants to avoid a diaspora — a congregation so scattered that it might never worship together again.
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