Architect's renderings, hard hats and shovels frame stage at  groundbreaking ceremony at Congregation Beth El in La Jolla.  As Rabbi Philip Graubart speaks, Congresswoman Susan Davis (D-San Diego), groundbreaking chairman Gary Ravet (hand to chin) and building chairman Ryan Stone (facing camera) listen to his description of the planned sanctuary.

By Donald H. Harrison  

LA JOLLA, Calif. — For 30 years Congregation Beth El has been conducting services in temporary sanctuaries on a hillside in the La Jolla section of San Diego, with its members hoping, planning, and sometimes arguing for the day when they could build a permanent sanctuary. So, although he gave the shortest speech at official groundbreaking ceremonies for that sanctuary on Sunday, April 9,  San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders received the loudest and longest cheers when he delivered this line:

"I happen to know the reason I am here today.  I have been given that reason by both Rod and Ryan. It is not to say nice words, not to do any of that; it is to speed the building permits. So that is my commitment as I leave today; your permits will be signed, sealed and delivered in a much quicker manner than normal!"

Ryan Stone is the chairman of the Conservative congregation's building committee, and Rod Stone, his father, held the same position about 25 years ago, when the congregation was preparing to move from a small house at the top of its hill into the multipurpose social hall farther down the hill which has served as the temporary sanctuary ever since. The permanent sanctuary will be built even lower on the hill at 8660 Gilman Drive.

Mayor Jerry Sanders draws a laugh from Paul Schultz

There was a theme of fathers and sons running throughout the morning ceremony. Alan Viterbi, the congregation's president, told how the current building campaign was assured when he and Ryan Stone "met with Jerry Katzin, Rod Stone and my dad (Andrew Viterbi). Their generosity and commitment gave us the strength to embark on this project."  

Later in the program, longtime congregant Paul Schultz said not long after the congregation moved from the Clairemont area of San Diego, where it had started in 1957, to its La Jolla campus,  he approached Rabbi Alex Graubart in Cleveland about becoming the congregation's spiritual leader.. However, the rabbi declined, explaining he didn't want to move because his son still was in high school. The son, Philip Graubart, went on to become a rabbi himself, and for the last four years has been occupying the pulpit once offered his father.

The mood at the ceremonies alternated behind the light-heartedness felt by a family, finally achieving its goals, and the seriousness of the mission set out for the sanctuary—to be not only a place of prayer for the members of Congregation Beth El but, through its interior architecture, to be a place that will help to recapture the world of Eastern European Jewry who perished in the Holocaust.

The building committee worked with architect Stanley Saitowitz of San Francisco to design a sanctuary with a modern exterior. Rabbi Graubart said the interior will contain " most of the elements of a classical Eastern European synagogue … and those synagogues
                                                                                      Sand sculpture depicts future sanctuary building

represent not just spiritual places of worship, but a whole culture, Ashkenazi culture, the culture of Yiddish-speaking Jews, a great civilization that produced art and language and architecture and music and totally unique spiritual expressions." 

"That whole civilization was murdered in just 12 years between 1933 and 1945," Rabbi Graubart said. "When we build this building, and we build our new walls, all of the stories of those Jews, their shtetls and relationships, their weddings and funerals, their music, their bubbemeisers, their wisdom, will infuse this new building. The stones ... will be filled with their achievements and their sorrows."

Ryan Stone said when the building committee members first began their work eight years ago, they met with numerous architects but were not inspired by any of their visions. However, while waiting for one such meeting to begin, Stone said he leafed through an architectural magazine which had a "pictorial of the Kyoto Museum designed by the legendary I. M. Pei   And this building is unbelievable. I. M  Pei took traditional Japanese theme – the old pagoda style – and used modern building forms with glass, concrete and stainless steel and just designed something magnificent."  

Stone said he decided to write to Pei to ask  if modern materials could be used for a sanctuary building that would evoke Eastern European synagogue themes. He was surprised when Pei personally telephoned to encourage him to go forward with  the idea.  Saying that he had retired from his practice, Pei put Stone in touch with a colleague who recommended Saitowitz, a San Francisco architect.  Stone announced to the crowd that Saitowitz  is soon to receive an award for his body of work  in a White House ceremony  from the  Smithsonian Institution's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

Architect Stanley Saitowitz acknowledges introduction


Saitowitz, standing at the back of a crowd that was furnished with trowels and yellow plastic "soft hats" for the occasion, did not speak during yesterday's ceremonies, but happily waved to the crowd.

Following the speechmaking, in which Congresswoman Susan Davis (D-San Diego) and groundbreaking event chairman Gary Ravet also participated, the speakers and major donors to the congregation's capital campaign were called forward to turn a few shovels full of dirt. Before they did so, they recited the shehechiyanu prayer, thanking God for bringing them to this moment.

                    
From left, Beth Israel President Alan Viterbi; Gary Ravet, groundbreaking chair; congregant Teedie Appelbaum in hard-hat; Qualcomm co-founders Irwin Jacobs and Andrew Viterbi chat during ceremony, and Congresswoman Susan Davis  (D-San Diego) makes a point.

Andy Hoffman, the congregation's executive director who had chosen a seat atop a giant earth moving machine to watch the ceremony, said the shoveling was taking place on the exact spot  where the future Aron Kodesh, or Holy Ark, would be placed. He said this Holy Ark  won't be a piece of furniture, but rather will be an 8-by-8-foot room, which will be revealed by a roll-up paneled door. The sefrei Torah will be arrayed in such a way within the Holy Ark  hat they will envelop any person who steps inside.

Similarly, congregants in their seats will have the sense of being enveloped by Torah because on twelve 30-foot windows around the sanctuary,  passages from the Torah will be engraved.  Hoffman said that among the passages already designated by Rabbi 
                                                                        

                                                                          Rabbi Graubart and Exec Director Andy Hoffman aboard earthmover

Graubart are the stories of the Creation, Noah and the Ark,  Abraham, Jacob at Beth El (the incident for which the synagogue was named),  Joseph in Egypt, the Exodus, the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai, the spies scouting out Canaan, excerpts from Deuteronomy including the Sh'ma Yisroel prayer, and Moses' farewell.

Asked if the Hebrew name of God presented any special concerns, Hoffman reported that Rabbi Graubart researched  the issue and determined that so long as the name never was erased, there was no halachic problem.  He said because the windows will be etched, there is no problem of sunlight causing the name of God to fade.

It has not been decided whether to configure the sanctuary with 380 or 420 seats, Hoffman said, but there is plenty of time to decide before Rosh Hashanah of 2007, when the sanctuary is expected to come into use. The executive director said the sanctuary was designed for Shabbat services, rather than for High Holiday services, the latter of which will continue to be conducted in the Jacobs Social Hall. 

There will be a plaza between the Jacobs Social Hall. and the new sanctuary, for which there is a $1 million "naming opportunity." This plaza will have an outdoor chuppah "because we expect that outdoor weddings on the plaza, using the sanctuary and the community hall , will be a very attractive feature," Hoffman said.