Struggles of a small-town shul
The current issue of the Baltimore Jewish Times has a nicely observed cover story about the murky future facing the Congregation of Israel, a small shul in the Eastern Shore hamlet of Pocomoke City that decided not to hold High Holiday services this year for the first time in its 130-year history. Managing editor Alan H. Feiler writes:
This evening, as the first faint traces of darkness fall on Pocomoke City — a picturesque but economically depressed town about 40 minutes southeast of Salisbury — Congregation of Israel’s humble, 60-year-old building will remain silent, solemn and empty at the start of Rosh Hashanah. Once a community of 20 to 25 Jewish families and considered the epicenter of Eastern Shore Jewry, Pocomoke City today has, at best, only an estimated handful of Jews.
“It’s really sad,” said Pocomoke City Mayor Michael A. McDermott. “A lot of the families had stores here and in other communities around here, and they organized this synagogue. But a lot of the families relocated or their children moved on, so it dried up. Having the synagogue in the city, even if it was lightly used, was unique. It was slowly ebbing away, but there’s a real sense of loss. We’ve lost a part of our heritage.”
Tammy Green and her family first stumbled upon Congregation of Israel while vacationing in Delaware during the High Holidays in 1972, Feiler reports. They have been back every year since.
“We wanted something intimate and different than our synagogue in Bethesda, and it’s become an important part of our lives,” she says. “Back then, there were three families to make sure that everyone had a home to go to for dinner, like an extended family. But the people started to die off. I don’t know what we’ll do this year for the holidays. [Congregation of Israel] is very close to my heart.”
