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May 24, 2013

Emanu-El celebrates 150th

Congregation needs help to preserve a vital Jewish landmark.
ED FITCH

Congregation Emanu-El is celebrating its sesquicentennial this year, and this article will relate some of the major milestones in the life of the 1863 sanctuary building, with a focus on the current efforts to preserve, rehabilitate and restore the magnificent architectural and historical treasure that is “The Emanuel of Victoria,” the name used in the 1864 Act of Incorporation. Its (hi)story, however, begins even earlier.

There are reliable records that Jews first came to Victoria in 1858, four years before the founding of the city. Much has been written about these men and women who journeyed to the northwestern limit of civilization in the Americas inspired by the discovery of gold in the British Columbia interior. (Cyril E. Leonoff, historian emeritus of the Jewish Historical Society of British Columbia, has written extensively on the early years of Jewish life in British Columbia, particularly in his seminal Pioneers, Pedlars and Prayer Shawls: The Jewish Communities in British Columbia and the Yukon, published by Sono Nis Press in 1978. Readers might also be interested in Leonoff’s “The Hebrew Ladies of Victoria, Vancouver Island,” The Scribe 24, nos. 1 and 2, which can be found at jewishmuseum.ca.)

Fueled by gold fever, Victoria soon became the bustling metropolis of the Pacific Northwest, second only to San Francisco, itself largely a product of the California gold rush of 1849. While some pioneering Jews focused on the primal search for the yellow metal, most had learned from their days in San Francisco that the real money was to be found in providing for the influx of miners and the infrastructure required to sustain them.

Soon after their arrival, Jews were meeting for religious services and, by 1859, had established a cemetery. By 1862, plans were being discussed to build a synagogue. And what grand plans they were!

First, they had to purchase a property, which they did at a cost of $730 – land was granted for churches at no cost. Then, the firm of Wright and Sanders was selected as the architects and builders, with John Wright acknowledged as its architect. The plans called for a substantial brick building in the Romanesque Revival style. This was in contrast to the majority of houses of worship (churches) in that period, which were of wood construction, only one of which has survived to this day, in Hope, B.C. Remarkably, a public appeal for funds to finance the construction was answered by a broad cross-section of the citizenry of the city. The list of donors and donations survives to this day.

The pioneer Jewish community of 25-35 households (approximately 100 souls) commissioned a synagogue that seated 350. The cornerstone was laid on June 2, 1863, and the building was first used on Sept. 13 (erev Rosh Hashanah 5624) of that same year. In November 1863, the building committee reported the project complete. (It is an unfounded rumor that the building of the synagogue was delayed until 1863 because the City of Victoria was founded in 1862 and it took a year to get a building permit through the new planning department.)

The congregation was incorporated by an act of the Legislature of the Colony of Vancouver Island that received assent on July 7, 1864, as “The Emanuel of Victoria, Vancouver Island.”

In 1866, the Colony of Vancouver Island amalgamated with the Colony of British Columbia. With the end of the gold rush and completion of the rail connection on the mainland to Eastern Canada and the United States, the focus of entrepreneurs and rapid economic expansion shifted from Victoria to the new city of Vancouver. Victoria experienced a depression and long periods of little or slow growth. This was reflected in Victoria’s Jewish community.

The story diverges slightly now to account for two other structures on the Emanu-El campus.

In 1893, on a parcel of land to the south of the sanctuary, purchased circa 1863 for an extra $350, the congregation erected a wooden structure measuring 50 by 70 feet, called the Hebrew Ladies’ Hall, so named because it could not have been built without the Hebrew Ladies’ Association having raised a large part of the construction funds and because it was intended to facilitate the association in their further fundraising activities. This building functioned in many different roles: as a ballroom, space for bazaars, a school, a church and even a judo club. Later renamed Victoria Hall, by the 1970s, the then 80-year-old structure had deteriorated and was demolished in favor of a used car lot. The land was later used for the portable classrooms of Emanu-El’s Hebrew school, until the construction of the present Fisher Building (Congregation Emanu-El Education and Culture Centre).

The other structure was a single-storey addition referred to as a “lean to.” In approximately 1900, it was built onto southeast corner of the sanctuary. The structure was extended to the street in the late 1940s, when the synagogue was “modernized.” This space, still very much in use today, has served multiple purposes over the last 100 years: from kitchen to classroom to meeting space to child play area, it has been truly versatile.

Years of decline, crisis

By 1901, the population of Vancouver had surpassed that of Victoria and the gap has grown ever since. As for the Victoria Jewish community, its numbers had climbed gradually to about 150 by 1900, but then dropped off to about 100 by the 1920s/30s. Ray Rose, whose parents arrived in 1909, was born in Victoria in 1920. His bar mitzvah in 1933 was the first in Congregation Emanu-El in 10 years. In 1939, at the outbreak of the Second World War, there were only six Jewish teenagers in Victoria: three boys and three girls. The three boys went off to fight for the Allied cause and all had returned by 1945.

By 1948, problems had reached crisis proportions. It is thought that there was consideration given to selling the building, as the estimated seven remaining member families could barely raise the money to heat the building. However, they persevered. In order to cut operating costs, they took the sanctuary through what has been termed “some rather unsympathetic remodeling.” (See Martin Segger, Victoria: A Primer for Regional History in Architecture, published by Watkins Glen, N.Y.: American Life Foundation and Study Institute, 1979.)

In the process of the remodeling, the interior was reduced to one storey through the installation of a false ceiling cutting off the mezzanine balcony. The windows were sealed, as were two of the three main entrance doors. The whole building was clad in yellow stucco. As unseemly as this may seem to us today, these drastic steps saved the building until better times returned.

By 1979, the Jewish community of Victoria had rebounded to the point that the leadership began to contemplate restoring the sanctuary to its original glory. By 1983, their efforts had overcome innumerable challenges and the reconstruction was completed, resulting in the receipt of several project awards and National Heritage Site status for the sanctuary building.

Growth has continued at Emanu-El and the egalitarian Conservative congregation now welcomes in the order of 200 member families, despite the advent of three new congregations in the city over the last 10 or so years: Aish HaTorah (modern Orthodox), Kolot Mayim (Reform) and Chabad of Vancouver Island. It is popularly believed that there are now 2,500-3,500 Jews on Vancouver Island, although many of them are unaffiliated. Nonetheless, after much debate, followed by intense fundraising efforts, the Al and Sylvia Fisher Building, the Congregation Emanu-El Educational and Cultural Centre, was opened in 2003. It is located on the same spot as was the historic Hebrew Ladies’ Hall and wooden school of 110 years earlier.

Mystery of the cracks

I arrived in Victoria in July 2006 with my wife, Sharon, and began regular attendance at Shabbat services at Congregation Emanu-El. It did not take long before I noticed the cracks high on the wall to the right of the aron kodesh (holy ark). In subsequent weeks, I noticed that the cracks were growing. Given my educational background, I was prompted to ask some questions. This resulted in my appointment to the house committee, then led by Miriam Fisher z”l, who I later succeeded as committee chair.

By December 2007, we had instituted a program of crack measurement through the placement of gauges over the four most prominent cracks in the exterior wall. Periodic measurements have been conducted since. The primary concern is public safety, with a concurrent interest in discovering and rectifying the cause of the cracks.

Our first instinct was that the walls were cracking due to shifting of the building foundation. With the help of GOAL Engineering Ltd., our partners in crack monitoring, and Thurber Engineering Ltd., we examined the footings at five test pits, only to find that the building foundations were quite sound. This is remarkable in itself given the primitive method of preparing building foundations in 1863 and the cumulative effects of construction on the surrounding lots and 150 years of traffic at this busy street corner. (Basically, a trench was excavated around the desired footprint of the building into which were thrown large rocks. The hole was then covered with lime slurry. Portland cement had been invented some 40 years earlier but was not yet in wide use.)

Finding that the foundations were not at fault, we then investigated the roof structure. Access was achieved on June 3, 2010, through the one small trap door in the northwest corner of the mezzanine ceiling. The roof investigation party consisting of Mark Byram (GOAL), Don Luxton (Donald Luxton and Associates), Dan Weber of Read Jones Christoffersen (RJC) and myself soon identified the problem. Essentially, old water damage (likely prior to 1979) had caused rot in some structural members where they entered the masonry walls. This same water infiltration had caused the failure of the lime mortar at these points, resulting in loose bricks that had lost any structural value. These flaws were allowing the roof to sag, thereby exerting lateral forces on the masonry walls, causing the observed cracking.

The current restoration project

To start on this round of once-in-a-generation preservation, rehabilitation and restoration of the 1863 sanctuary, the board of directors of Congregation Emanu-El sponsored a competition to find a heritage conservation consultant: Donald Luxton and Associates (Vancouver) was selected. Luxton explained that his pleasure on being chosen to work with Emanu-El of Victoria was based on at least three factors: the sheer age of the building, as few older are in existence; its rare Romanesque Revival architecture; and that it has been in continuous use for its original purpose since the day it was built. These factors combine, he said, to make Emanu-El one of the three or four most important historical buildings in British Columbia.

The scope of work developed included, in approximate order of priority, the need to repair and reinforce the roof structure; restore the windows and increase the R-value, the degree of resistance to the passage of heat through a material, in order to reduce heat loss; replace the outmoded electro-mechanical heating controls with a programmable electronic system; upgrade the fire/smoke detection system to promote early warning; replace the front entrance and modify it to provide universal access; enhance the security of the aron kodesh to provide fire, theft, flood and earthquake protection for the sifrei Torah (Torah scrolls); and renew the well-worn wooden floor. Compared to the 1982-era restoration, these projects are mostly out of sight and out of mind. They can be likened to municipal sewer pipes and water supply lines – as long as they are working, no one pays them much attention and one is loath to invest the necessary funding for their upkeep or replacement, but when they fail, however, watch the attention they garner.

“The elephant in the sanctuary” is what will happen when the oft-predicted major earthquake occurs. Will there be a major earthquake? Almost certainly. How much damage would be inflicted on “The Emanuel of Victoria”? Hashem only knows. We examined a number of options to further strengthen the building in the event of an earthquake. Since it is a heritage building, and is uninhabited for the most part of any week, there is no requirement in law to take other than common-sense preventative measures; for example, repairing the sagging roof structure. Retrofitting earthquake protection usually involves the construction of an exoskeleton internal or external to the building. Either option would be extremely intrusive and would destroy many of the heritage elements for which the edifice is treasured. However, from my personal experience of the aftermath of a devastating earthquake in Venzone, Italy, in 1976, and my return to that city in 1996, I know how well great buildings can be restored after such a natural disaster. That being said, our main focus is on saving the current structure of the synagogue building so that it can withstand the everyday elements of nature.

The money required to accomplish this work, approximately $950,000 in 2012 dollars, is far beyond what our small community can muster. Thus, our search for financial support from three levels of government and all manner of private donations continues. We have enjoyed considerable success in the Victoria Jewish community and continue our appeals to other sources. The restoration team is determined to continue the struggle until the work incumbent on our generation has been funded and completed.

Once we have completed the projects described above, thus ensuring the integrity of the building envelope, we believe that the Emanu-El sanctuary will be in a sufficient state of repair that a 20-year cycle of periodic preventive maintenance inspections and repairs should see the building through its next 150 years.

Ed Fitch is a retired civil engineer living in Victoria with his wife, Sharon. A member of Congregation Emanu-El since their arrival in the city in 2006, he is chair of the synagogue’s house committee. A version of this article appeared in the 2012 edition of The Scribe, the annual journal of the Jewish Historical Society of British Columbia, and is reprinted with permission. To purchase a copy ($20 plus postage) of the 2012 Scribe, which has a special focus on Congregation Emanu-El, contact the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia at 604-257-5199 or [email protected].

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