When a Synagogue Closes, What Becomes of Its Torah?

According to Bill Rubenstein, co-president of the 149-year-old Reform temple Anshe Emeth in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, the congregation at first couldn’t find a deconsecration service for a Torah. “So we found a consecration service and did it backwards,” he said with a laugh. On June 11, Eugene Levy, the temple’s part-time rabbi for the past three years, conducted the two-hour service, which included reading the names of every single person whose Yahrzeit was observed in the long history of the congregation. About 60 people were there, including current members; former members from as far as Dallas, San Antonio, and Atlanta; representatives from the Jewish Federation of Arkansas; and Pastor Susan Carter Wiggins of the First Presbyterian Church, which had provided the sanctuary for Anshe Emeth for the past three years. At the end, Rubenstein removed the mezuzah and handed the building’s keys to Pastor Wiggins.

It was a bittersweet Shabbat service on an otherwise beautiful summer morning. Like congregations in many other small towns with declining Jewish populations, Anshe Emeth was finally closing its doors in the once-thriving Cotton Belt city. And like these other congregations, Anshe Emeth had to decide what to do with its last two Torah scrolls.

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