Today I Am A
Fountain Pen, Again

Charles Rosenay remembered hearing his mother talking and talking up in the women’s section in the balcony. Charlie Ludwig recalled that after months of practice, on the big day he came down with serious laryngitis and had to squeak his way through his Torah portion and speech. Steve Dickman remembered thinking through the prayers that all he wanted was to get through high school and have a pretty girlfriend. He got both.

Those were some of the memories shared of bar mitzvah celebrations held at Congregation Beth Israel, known as the Orchard Street Shul, in the mid 20th century.

The historic Orthodox synagogue — shuttered for years, now the subject of a historic restoration drive — marked its 99th year in New Haven on Sunday by inviting back 30 of its bar mitzvah boys of yore for a replay. The returnees, some of them almost as old as the shul itself, had a second bar mitzvah ceremony of sorts together on the restored bimah of a neighborhood synagogue that barely escaped the fate of so many of New Haven’s other lost 20th century Jewish houses of worship.

After preliminary speeches, each participant was called up to receive pen, certificate, and candy and to speak briefly on memories. Then, together as a group, the boys returned to the forefront to conclude ceremonies by leading a group sing of the prayer ​“Adon Olam.” About 75 people attended the afternoon event.

A little stouter than they were at 13 and a lot more white-haired, they still were able to relive the glory of the moment by which in Jewish tradition they became men and in Jewish comic tradition how they also became fountain pens.

Charlie Ludwig — who like many of the returnees grew up in the old immigrant Oak Street neighborhood, since leveled by urban renewal and now poised for a rebirth of its own — in fact did receive a fountain pen and some bucks from his Uncle Louis on his day.

Barry Vine (bar mitzvah July 21, 1956) received 16, count ​‘em, 16 fountain pens.

On Sunday, surrounded by kids and grandkids, the returnees didn’t quite bound up the steps with their erstwhile sure-footedness. Still Ludwig and 29 other bar mitzvah guys from as far away as California, Florida, and Ohio returned and accepted certificates, the comic pen (these came with a light at the top to show the way), and also, in a journey down memory lane, a bag of candy.

According to one of the organizers, Barry Herman, former president of the Jewish Historical Society, raisins and candy used to be tossed down by the moms and sisters from the balcony. Now that the synagogue is cleaned up and in the process of historic restoration, the candy was bagged.

The most senior of the bar mitzvah returnees was 96-year-old Herb Croog, who became a bar mitzvah in 1928. That was less than two years after the great brick synagogue was bought and built, all for $12,000 in 1926.

According to Lee Liberman, the shul’s president, and Roz Croog, the event’s chief organizer, about 1,500 bar mitzvah celebrations occurred between 1926 and 1994. Shortly after that, with many of the grown-up bar mitzvah boys and their families having moved to the ​‘burbs or farther, the synagogue shut down. Its membership had long dwindled.

In 2005 a historic restoration began, as the building earned a state and national historic landmark designation.

According to Rabbi Mendy Hecht, the third generation of Hechts to lead the synagogue, enough funds were raised to ​“seal” the envelope of the building with, most recently, a new roof.

Membership has grown in less than a year to nearly 100. The hope is one day to make it not just a living museum of sorts, but something of a functioning synagogue.

Most of Sunday was spent not on raising money but on raising nostalgic memories among men who spent their childhoods together in a leave-your-door open immigrant world now long gone from Legion Avenue and Oak Street, which were mostly leveled to make way for a highway that was never built.

Before he was called up to receive his retro goodies, Jack Kitavitz (original bar mitzvah date: May 23, 1944) turned to Ludwig and said, ​“You lived on Vernon Street, right? And your father had a pushcart?”

“No, that was someone else,” said Ludwig, although Kitavitz was right about Vernon Street. Ludwig and his best friend Irving Rohinsky lived on Vernon.

It was the landlord of the building he lived in who had the push cart, Ludwig told Kitavitz. Then both men paused in their memories.

When Ludwig returned, he made a correction. Not a pushcart but a wagon. ​“He was really a junk man. His name was Jacob Cohen.”

After a few more bar mitzvah guys, adjusting their canes, navigated up and down from the dais, Ludwig intoned the call of the junk man: ​“Cash for rags! Cash for rags! Cash for rags!”

As the ceremonies proceeded to the reception, minds turned to thoughts of food. Kitavitz recalled a modest post-bar mitzvah ceremony dinner held in the yard of his family house on Arch Street.

Most people were quite poor, and the repasts then reflected that. Paul Weinstein (bar mitzvahed on March 23, 1935) brought his printed invitation with him. He recalled that during the Depression, around the time of his becoming a bar mitzvah, the synagogue could not afford to pay to heat the building. His dad intervened, and the coal company made a delivery. ​“I’m very proud of that.”

“Money was short then, so the reception was kichel [a kind of crispy pastry], herring, and a bottle of schnapps,” said Liberman.

After their bar mitzvah re-hurrah Sunday, Charlie Ludwig and the other boys and their families well made up for it with a splendid reception downstairs beneath the sanctuary.

The synagogue has begun holding some services on the first sabbath of every month. For info call Roslyn Croog .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).