Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center Oral History

An oral historian interviews Rabbi Dr. Pesach Schindler z”l and Yitz Jacobsen z”l, founders of the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center.

Interviewer: The dates…today is what…

Pesach: 9th of February.

Interviewer: 2 thousand and…

Pesach: 2017. Hebrew Date.

Yitz: The entire oral history has to be in English.

Interviewer: So today is what? Today’s 9th of January – no – February 2017. And we are here. Where are we?

Pesach: You are in the beautiful – I must tell you, the house costs nothing. But the beauty of the scenery is worth a million dollars.

Interviewer: OK. Now we going here. We going to ask a question about the house, how you call it, the name of the house

Yitz: About the Fuchsberg Center. 

Interviewer: I understand that you were the visionary. How did the idea come out? And you have to mention of course (indistinguishable). 

Pesach: Well, look. In…it started for me in the states in 1972. That’s when Yitzhak (Jacobsen) came along as well. And he needed space for his office. He didn’t have any. He was a poor USY-nick. I was a rich, United Synagogue…So I enjoyed giving him half of my desk.

Yitz: That was when I was on Shlichut in New York, that’s when we got to know each other. Can I add something?

Pesach: Sure.

Yitz: There was a gentleman by the name of Tzvi Dagan in the Ministry of Tourism. He worked for the ministry in New York, and he befriended a gentleman by the name of David Zucker. Now, Tzvi Dagan came back to Israel and he heard that the corner building, Agron 2 and 4 was up for sale, by the mission to the Holy Land, I think from St. Louis Missouri. They had to leave the country because…

Interviewer: Just a minute…I am going to interview you separately, don’t worry, now we are going to concentrate on Pesach Schindler.

Pesach: Don’t call me ‘HaRav’

Interviewer: Professor, OK, what happened? How did your vision begin? Start again.

Pesach: How did the vision of getting the building on 2, 4, and then later 6 Agron happen? Is that your question?

Interviewer: Yes. You have to also mention the Fuchsberg Center.

Pesach: Fuchsberg came later. Fuchsberg was a, you have to give, I think Rabbi Jerry Epstein credit, for bringing him into the picture, but he was not there at the beginning. The big people who made it happen were David Zucker, who was a fabrenter Zionist, and he could not understand why the Conservative Movement does not have a headquarters in the middle of Yerushalayim (Jerusalem). And that was a big visionary thing. And I admired him for that. I had other offers, when I came on Aliyah, to do many other things, which I won’t mention, they’re not important. But his vision made the difference.

Interviewer: When was it?

Pesach: That was 1972. And there is another person who deserves a lot of credit, and that is Mr. Morris Spizeman, who was a layman from Carolina, wasn’t he? Yes. And he also came on board to be a partner in helping finance the beginning of all of this.

Interviewer: So how it became from visionary to reality?

Well, first of all you become – you start becoming a visionary when you begin to bring money into the picture. And these people put their mouth where their money was.

Yitz: No, put their money where their mouth was.

Pesach: And also, it’s important to know, that Zucker knew people in the Jewish Agency. There’s a street here called Dolchin. Dolchin was the treasurer of the Jewish Agency. And so Zucker went to Dolchin and he said look, you have the chance of brining the Conservative Movement to the center of Yerushalayim (Jerusalem). We would like your help. And that’s what happened.

Interviewer: OK. So, how you in all this – what did you do to make sure it will go well?

Yitz: When you came on Aliyah, what did you do? September ’72.

Pesach: September ’72 I went to the site where the building is now. (Speaks in Yiddish). You understand a bit of Yiddish? I had a terrible thing – there were people who went into the building and squatted. You heard of squatting? People who didn’t have a place to stay so they went in and we had to take measures to get rid of them. And then we had to take measures to start building things that were part of every building: where the toilets will be, we had to worry about not only…I insisted that we immediately begin classes, that there should be classes running every day, that people should be able to come and study. Because if you are going to have a building that is merely blocks, then of what is the purpose is it? So we had lots – we put in the newspaper that every day somebody else was teaching there.

Yitz: So what about the Youth Hostel and maybe also about the synagogue in Agron 4? Say something about – 

Interviewer: Connect the story.

Yitz: There was a Youth Hostel there too – 

Interviewer: In September 1972 what happened in this area, what houses existed already?

Pesach: Well, we also had to worry about a shul, are people going to be davening in our shul or davening elsewhere? And the shul was very important. I had to give credit here, even though him and I had differences of opinion on many things, and that was a gentleman by the name of Rabbi Baunder. What was his first name? Rabbi Baunder who worried that every Shabbos somebody is going to give a Dvar Torah in shul. And he invited local rabanim, Conservative rabbis, to give a Dvar Torah. 

Interviewer: So as for the question – why did you choose the place in Agron 2? What number?

Pesach: Agron 2 and 4. Because we had it – it was given to us in order to do something with it. And in order to do something with it you have to create programs, and that’s what we did.

Interviewer: So what program you did? Daily classes?

Pesach: We had classes, right. We had on Shabbos we always asked a local guest to give a presentation. Sometimes there was an important leader who was visiting us and so we gave him the honor to feel at home, and so he got up on the bima and he gave an address as well. In other words, we did this by gut feeling. This is the gut, and this is the feeling we had, to keep things going.

Interviewer: So you put content on this building.

Pesach: Yes, absolutely.

Interviewer: And so you start to build the center of the conservative there?

Pesach: We called it the Center for Traditional Judaism.

Interviewer: Conservative?

Pesach: Traditional…I don’t know if we called it conservative. We wanted to get away from that name. We wanted to give it traditional Judaism.

Interviewer: So, in the meantime, the Reform was already popular?

Pesach: Yea, the Reform already started on King David Street.

Interviewer: So you had to compete with them?

Pesach: Not only that, but my friend Rabbi Dick Hirsch said, Pesach, you have the people, we have the building, you come on over to us. We refused – we did not want to lose our identity.

Interviewer: So, in 1972, September – what happened in this area and you mentioned the synagogue OK, and Youth Hostel too?

Pesach: I must give credit to Yitz. Yitz immediately saw that in the future, what we have now, was not sufficient to house people who are going to be coming here in greater numbers, right. USY kids, summer programs, etc., etc. So he said to have a little Youth Hostel is going to be a catastrophe. And he immediately began to become familiar with the leaders of the Israel Youth Hostel Association. How did they call themselves in Hebrew?

Yitz: ANA.

Pesach: And that partnership was absolutely essential.

Interviewer: Listen, because I am already see how I am going to edit or somebody else will edit, I have to take all the sentences again. When you came, you choose Agron 2, 3, 4

Pesach: 2, 4, 6

Yitz: 6 came 20 years later, forget it.

Interviewer: 2, 4. Why did you choose it there and what happened before you came?

Pesach: It was in the center of Yerushalayim. Somebody gave us a gift. 

Interviewer: We choose the place, you have to repeat the question, because I am not going to be there. We choose the place on Agron because …

Pesach: We choose Agron 2 and 4 because it was essential that we have a presence in the center of Jerusalem.

Interviewer: And besides that what did you have, a synagogue?

Pesach: We had a synagogue which we operated and then we began, as soon as possible, to begin having classes, where people would come and study.

Interviewer: And the Youth Hostel too? The Youth Hostel was exist?

Pesach: The Youth Hostel was exist.

Yitz: No, when you came, what I remember is – when you opened the center the building was divided part for offices and classes, and part was to become a very simple Youth Hostel.

Pesach: Yes, that is correct.

Yitz: And then also afterward you developed student programs.

Pesach: We had what? Bringing people over?

Yitz: No, also Hebrew University and so forth. Pesach – Eli wants you to give a picture of all of the activities that took place in Agron 2 and 4. So you had classes, synagogue, students…

Interviewer: Mention it again, but you have to say we chose in Agron the center of Jerusalem and this and this and this

Pesach: We chose the center of Jerusalem and operated as soon as possible programs, that made it important that we do it that way. Number one – namely that people have a place to stay at night if they wish to come and have a room at night. And if they wish to come and study for an hour a week or two hours a week, we made sure that this is going to take place. And then we had hoped that this would expand so that that it will not be sufficient to have a little Youth Hostel. We had to create a large Youth Hostel of people coming and spending their time in the center of Jerusalem.

Interviewer: And synagogue?

Pesach: Yes, the synagogue was extremely important. At first there was only on Shabbat, and then we did a remarkable thing – we began a daily minyan. Every day, at 7 o’clock, the shul was open, and people would come and daven there. And every day someone was assigned – we had fantastic teachers – who gave a Dvar Torah for that day. That was a remarkable thing because in all of the conservative synagogues in Israel, nobody had a daily minyan. That was a tremendous achievement. And there are people still today, giving a Dvar Torah. I have to mention Rabbi Yehoshua Adler, he’s the last of the Mohicans, who give a Dvar Torah once a week, and then he publishes it on the internet.

Interviewer: So this was your baby.

Pesach: My baby? It was only my baby because somebody else wasn’t here at the time. And I enjoyed working here, but I also must tell you, there were a lot of moments of heartache, of things that we couldn’t do because there were conflicts within the movement. Who’s supposed to do it? And it wasn’t you, and its United Synagogue, and not the world council, etc…I don’t want to bother you with negative politics. But we had to constantly struggle with keeping the dynamics going.

Yitz: Pesach – at one point I think you should also mention the new programs you developed. Like the center on campus type of work, working with students that came here to Hebrew University, Tel Aviv…then you can mention the Machon for Madrichei Hutz LaAretz, and afterwards the idea of Nativ. All the things that you were the initiating force. 

Interviewer: So what happened after you established the Beit Midrash or the offices and classrooms? What else?

Pesach: Then we made connections with the Hebrew University. It was a very important connection. There should be a partnership between the youth department of the United Synagogue offices to open up classes at the university specifically for young people who want and come study just for the summer or want to come and study for an entire year. And it was my pleasure to have the schut, privilege to be teaching there for many years.

Interviewer: How many?

Pesach: Many, many.

Interviewer: More than 30 years?

Pesach: Yeah.

Yitz: Also, Pesach, you also established the desk of center on campus. Giving conservative kids, who came to study at the university, a conservative home – meals, weekends, retreats, and so forth.

Interviewer: What else did you do? What else did you plan?

Pesach: Look, whenever we found a young person who wanted to get more than what he would have gotten had he stayed in the United States or in Europe, then we would try to develop a program were that person would get personalized attention. There was a lot of that going on.

Interviewer: Are you proud?

Pesach: No, one should never be proud.

Interviewer: Why?

Pesach: One should be thankful, but not proud. You know it’s…it’s…I was very lucky that in my own development, I began with a very haredi – very ultra-orthodox background, and I was a member of Pirchei Agudas Yisroel. And little by little, I moved over to where I felt much more comfortable and where I became very involved in Bnei Akiva. And one of the founders, my colleague in Bnei Akiva, just passed away now at the age of 92, Eli Klein, z”l, may he rest in peace. Those were my most wonderful years. I was sent to Israel for a year on the Machon for Madrichei Hutz LaAretz and that’s where I met Shulamit. She came from Bnei Akiva in Toronto and I came from Bnei Akiva in the United States. I won’t bother you with my personal story, which Yitzchak knows about, I gave him the book, how my brother and I were smuggled out of Germany alone, without anyone helping us, and took us to the United States. The chances of our getting out was one in many, many millions. Most of my people that I grew up with in Munchen and Munich no longer survived. So, you can’t be proud of that, you have to be thankful to the Ribono shel Olam, Gd. That’s it.

Interviewer: So, when I say who are you Pesach Schindler, are you a musician, are you a Talmud scholar, are you a visionary? What are you? How would you describe yourself?

Pesach: I am trying to integrate all of those things so that they make sense. So that they don’t clash with one another, but they harmonize with one another, if I can use that term, harmonize.

Interviewer: Can you explain to the simple, ordinary people what’s the connection between Talmud, music and visionary?

Pesach: It’s a very difficult question…you know what I enjoy? Opening up the radio in the morning, at about 5 o’clock, and listening to the Daf Yomi, by a great rabbi, who is a marvelous masbir, explainer of things. And when I hear him my neshama (soul) expands. I’ve said it’s a schut, a privilege to be able to come to Yerushaliym and listen to a Daf Yomi on the radio. Where do you get that in New York? You get the old WEVD. This station that was on for maybe 2 hours a day and played a few hazanut, and that’s it. 

Interviewer: Young people see you now, what is your message? What do you want to – how do you see the conservative movement here?

Pesach: Oh, that’s a dangerous question. That’s a very bad question.

Interviewer: Forget about the question.

Pesach: The only thing that I can say that at a particular point when I had something to do was starting the Conservative Yeshiva. People called me from New York. Pesach – call it anything, call it an institute, don’t call it a yeshiva. I said what’s wrong? They said because yeshiva sounds too orthodox. Our point should not be to be anti-orthodox, it should be pro-Yahadut (Judaism). That’s my statement. 

Interviewer: You see, my question was very important, I asked a dangerous question and got a beautiful answer. Do you have another message, do you want to say, to add something? Now with your – when you look back at what you did, how do you feel? How many years are you in Israel already? ’72? 

Pesach: ‘72, That was the first time. We were here when we were on the Madrichei Hutz LaAretz.

Interviewer: So, when you look back what do you feel?

Pesach: When I look back on the – on what I did here, I have good feelings and I have difficult feelings. The good feelings are that the people who come to the center and wish to, what we call, study Torah for its own sake, are there and not only because they want to become a rabbi. The bad feelings I feel that very often, people abroad in the movement don’t understand how important Yerushalyim is, and they prefer to concentrate on improving Judaism in Galut, in the Diaspora, which is important, but Yerushalyim is of such great essence, that every person that we bring here is to be held and hugged because of what he is doing here. When I hear that so and so that had no background whatsoever, has made Aliyah, and has just come into the army…this is an incredible kind of thing. Yitzchak will tell you about this young boy from USY who wanted to come and join the army and he joined the army, and he was killed in action here. What was his name?

Yitz: Michael Levine.

Pesach: Michael Levine. That is the height of Kiddush Hashem, of sanctifying God’s name. And so, that is my closing statement at the moment.

Interviewer: Ok, now I would like that you going to show your vision – the reality now – you going to tell us what we are seeing here. 

Yitz: 2, 4, 6, and 8 Agron.

Pesach: Ah, this is a gift.

Interviewer: Just a minute…What we seeing here? What is that?

This is a gift that Yitzchak gave me when I retired from the United Synagogue. And all the things inside here, they were part of when I have a little something to do with parts of the Bet Knesset (synagogue) that were put up there…there is a menorah there which we used on Yom Hashoa, and a survivor of the Shoah was given the honor to light these candles. What else do we have here?

Interviewer: You can show the building. Show us, where is Agron 2 and 3 and 6…

Yitz: No, start from the other side…

Pesach: 2, 4, 6, and 8. Now it has become a bus station. 

Interviewer: Why?

Interviewer: No, just in front.

Interviewer: So are you proud? Again.

Pesach: No. I’m not proud – I’m privileged to have been here at the right time and in the right place, and that things worked out so that from something very small and tiny, evolved this, I would say, new world that has been created.

Interviewer: Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you.

Pesach: Thank you. I must tell you that I will never forget how the Yom Kippur War hit me personally. I was the baal tefillah. I think Aaron Singer, z”l, (may he rest in peace), was the rabbi. And I see Mrs. Kohl standing outside in the garden and waving to me. And she asks me to ask Mr. Kohl to come out.

Yitz: Minister Kohl. HaSar-

Interviewer: Moshe Kohl.

Pesach: Minister Kohl – he was the Minister of Tourism. We became very close friends. And he said can I use your phone? I said Yom Kippur? To use the phone? Please, let me use the phone. He came into my office and he called whoever he had to call, and it was from Golda Meir’s office. Please – war is about to break out. Please immediately come on over. His son in law drove him to Tel Aviv to the cabinet meeting and every time later when I remind myself of this, I say, my Gd, what a world we live in…that I had this opportunity. I kept looking at the phone, every time, to see this particular thing.