By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO–Recently I received an interesting email from two sisters in Ontario, Canada, who wanted to know if there was a Jewish museum in San Diego or anything else Jewish that they could see on a planned 2 1/2 day visit to our city.
What I told them in the body of my reply may be of some interest to visitors you may be planning to host during the summer:
Let’s start with Old Town San Diego State Park, is the area, north of downtown, where San Diego began. In 1850, the first Jew to live in our city, Louis Rose, moved here. The Visitors Center in the Old Town San Diego State Historic Park is called the Robinson-Rose building, in honor of him as its one-time owner, and James W. Robinson, a Gentile friend and former acting governor of Texas (pre-statehood days), who owned it before Rose. There is a mezuzah on one of the doors in salute to Rose, for whom such place names in San Diego are derived as “Rose Canyon,” “Rose Creek” and “Roseville.”
Inside the Robinson-Rose house is a diorama showing an artist’s conception of what mid-19th century Old Town may have looked like. One of the structures is the Franklin Hotel which at three stories towered above the other buildings. As you walk around the plaza of Old Town you will see that building no longer stands, but it was owned by Lewis Franklin, who originally was from England. In 1849, Frankliln hosted in his tent in San Francisco, the first High Holy Day service on the West Coast. In 1850, he gave the High Holy Day sermon, but in 1851 he came to San Diego, where he and a few other Jews marked Rosh Hashanan and Yom Kippur, but without a minyan. Members of the Franklin family were also very prominent in the history of British Columbia.
Next to the empty space where the Franklin Hotel stood is the Wells Fargo Building, and inside are pictures of various people who were Wells Fargo agents. One pictured in a display case on the left side of the room is Joseph S. Mannasse, who like Rose, and Franklin, was quite active in the city’s development. He was on the city Board of Trustees that sold to developer Alonzo Horton (a Gentile) the land that became San Diego’s downtown and ultimately relegated Old Town to being a political backwater.
Mannasse was succeeded on the Board of Trustees by his business partner, Marcus Schiller, who was among the far-sighted individuals who set aside the land for Balboa Park, which houses our San Diego Zoo and nearly a score of distinct museums. On the Laurel Street entranceway to the park is a plaque mentioning Schiller as one of the men responsible for the great park. Every museum in the park, if you inquire deeply enough, has a Jewish story — either in its exhibits or in its history. The large organ pavilion is where the City of San Diego enthusiastically welcomed Albert Einstein who made a port of call here. Nearby, in the area where there are numerous cottages telling the stories of various countries, is a House of Israel. It is open on Sunday afternoons.
Marcus Schiller also was the founding president of Congregation Beth Israel (which was named Adath Jeshurun before it had a permanent home). The 1889 building in which Beth Israel celebrated its first High Holy Day still stands, preserved in nearby Heritage Park, as a splendid example of the architecture of its time. Nearby are Victorian cottages that were saved from the wrecker’s ball. Heritage Park is operated by our county government, whereas the state park, as its name implies, is operated by the State of California. The old synagogue is a beautiful building with the Tablets of the Law rising above the roofline, stained glass windows in Magen David design, and a fairly simple interior, with an Aron Kodesh and a Ner Tamid. The building is no longer a synagogue, but can be rented from the county for various purposes. Every High Holy Day, a small congregation rents it to conduct services there, and it is also a favorite place for marriages (Christian and Jewish), panel discussions and other events.
To get a sense of Jewish culture in the city, you may want to visit Beth Israel’s second home, which is a synagogue of Moorish design, at 3rd and Laurel Streets (a few blocks from Balboa Park). Today it is the home of a Conservative congregation–Ohr Shalom Synagogue — and an historic landmark. Many Jewish community events occurred in this synagogue’s social hall, which was known in its day (from the 1920s to 2000) as Temple Center.
Congregation Beth Israel has moved on to the University City area, east of La Jolla, and today it has a multi-building campus built in a simulated stone, giving the impression of Jerusalem. This Reform congregation has a nice collection of historic photographs telling the story of the congregation and the many members who rose to prominence.
Other synagogues pay tribute in their architecture to aspects of Jewish history. For example, Congregation Beth El, which is a Conservative congregation in La Jolla, is built in Sephardic style, with seats built around a central area where the Holy Ark and the Reader’s Table face each other. All that is missing, I suppose, is sand on the floor.
Congregation Beth Am in the northern reach of our city, in a neighborhood called Carmel Valley, built a courtyard re-creating a building from Roudnice, Czech Republic. Why there? Because when the congregation started it received a Holocaust Torah, which was traced to Roudnice. Every bar mitzvah boy and bat mitzvah girl would read from that Torah during the ceremony to symbolically twin with the children of that city who perished. So when the congregation moved to a new home, it decided to pay tribute to the city of their Torah. Architectural traces of Roudnice may be found in the rest of the synagogue.
Of course, there are other synagogues and centers with interesting Jewish histories, but you only have 2 1/2 days, so perhaps these suggestions will suffice. If your visit should occur over a Shabbat, any of the active congregations that I have mentioned, will be delighted to have you worship with them, and you’ll be able to play “Jewish geography” at the oneg Shabbat, or kiddush, that follows.
*
Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com