Music Leaders During the 1960s, the volunteer choir directed by a temple member (Don Easter at first and then Jerry Breslow) provided most of the music at Micah services—along with the congregation, which has always been encouraged to sing along. By 1969, Breslow told the board that “the choir is suffering from a lack of…
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Music’s Role in Worship
Music’s Role Without music, Temple Micah wouldn’t be Temple Micah. Not today. Not in the congregation’s early days. As with so many other aspects of Micah life, music started out as a do-it-yourself project. As soon as the proto-congregation drew a critical mass of singing members, it formed a volunteer choir which has grown and…
Ritual Objects
Ritual Objects What would eventually be called Temple Micah opened virtual doors in a Southwest DC church in 1963 with borrowed Jewish ritual objects. Over its first eight years, the congregation acquired two of its own Torah scrolls, as well as ornaments, kiddush cups and other objects in silver, but didn’t have a permanent home…
Micah Art
Art Work This is a slide show of Micah art works. Use the white arrows on the right or left side to scroll through it.
Worship
Worship What would become Temple Micah held its first High Holy Day services in 1963 at the Bethel Pentecostal Church in Southwest Washington. Rabbi Martin Cohen, a professor at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the Reform rabbinical seminary in New York, conducted the worship, using a conservative prayer book. According to the incipient…
Our Rabbis
Our Rabbis The Southwest Hebrew Congregation hired Bernard H. Mehlman, its first full time rabbi, in 1967, four years after its founding. Prior to that, the fledgling congregation had relied on Rabbi Richard Hirsch, the director of the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center in Washington, and rabbis from other cities who happened to be visiting…
A Home of Our Own
A Home of Our Own For the first few years after Temple Micah was born in 1963, services, religious school and other activities took place at various venues in the southwest neighborhood of Washington, DC. Although it began to hold worship services exclusively at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church at 6th and M St., SW, in…
Early Days
Early Days There is general agreement that Temple Micah was started in 1963 by a few families in Southwest Washington, DC. But the memories of the earliest members differ on the precise circumstances and reasons for its founding. To have a nearby place to observe the High Holy days, says one. To provide a religious…
The Micah Way
The Micah Way Temple Micah has always been a special place, which has often meant being different from other Reform congregations. What makes us special is hard to put into words, but the elements of our history may shed light on some of our distinctiveness. Born in the 1960s, we are congenitally egalitarian. From the…