Sep 1st 2007, 00:00

When the twenty-five founding member families of TBT met in August of 1964, they had high hopes of building a congregation in North Orange County. The vote to go Conservative or Reform was very close. The main objective was for a Jewish education for their children. Over the years Temple Beth Tikvah has had many up’s and downs and yet through it all we have managed to survive!

A lot of people think that Stan and I are founding members. We actually joined in May of 1965, the end of the first year and have been actively involved ever since! We both feel very strongly about the importance of a Jewish presence in North Orange County, today more than ever. We have been very fortunate to have had four generations belong to Temple Beth Tikvah.

Over the years the Temple boards have had different plans regarding how we should go forward and continue to grow. The question for a long time was - should we stay on the Acacia hill or will we move? Could we merge with Temple Beth Emet? We tried the merger with Adat Ari, which unfortunately has not worked the way we had all hoped for growth. The Trustees did a study a number of years ago, at their own expense, to see what direction we could follow. Some have met with architects and had a wonderful plan to enlarge the social hall and sanctuary. Unfortunately that plan would have meant shutting down the ECLC while under construction. Right now we have a committee meeting to work on a plan to “freshen up the facility” and give us a direction.

Lots of people ask me why I continue to stay so active in the running of the Temple. I certainly don’t have to. Our children and grandchildren are long gone, as far as attending school. Our family has had children and grandchildren in ECLC, children and grandchildren in our Religious School, Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, Confirmations, and weddings and other life-cycle events with our TBT family. The reality is that it all comes back to the education of our children and the great job that we do at TBT, and how proud I am of it. My favorite service of the month is the family service when we have our kids on the bimah. Come to one of our Bar/Bat Mitzvahs and see what our kids do, and then go to another congregation and see the difference. There probably is not a congregation of our size in the country that has as many post Bar/Bat Mitzvah kids read Torah and haftarah for the High Holy Days as we do.

When David Brown bought the old used portable building in 1966, it was called “Dave Brown’s folly.” Who would have thought it would have lasted all these years! But the time has come when we seriously have to replace it. Quite frankly, if I were coming into the congregation today, I would think twice about sending my children to that building without even a bathroom! It would probably be just as easy for me to drive an additional 20 minutes and put my kids into a newer, more modern facility. We definitely lose a lot of new members for this reason.

I think it’s time we think about the future of our congregation. The only way we can grow and survive is with young families with children. The last opportunity for growth in this congregation was in 1980, twenty-seven years ago when we had Project Expansion and built our sanctuary!

When I was president of Temple Beth Tikvah, the trustees came up with an idea to build a new school building across the patio from our social hall. At our 40th Anniversary celebration, I proposed that we pursue that dream. Stan and I donated our airplane to the Temple and when it sold, the $103,000 was the start. Some of you have asked the question as to why it has taken so long for us to get the project to this point. I’d like to take a little time to give you all some of the background of this very comprehensive project.

We started with meetings of the Board of Trustees to discuss the viability of such a project. We then sent a questionnaire to the congregation and asked the question of which area of the Temple needed improving the most - the school building, social hall or sanctuary. The replies reflected that the first priority had to be the school, second the social hall and last the sanctuary. We then established a committee that had many meetings with architects Stan Goldin and Jon Sommers. They came to us with very high credentials, to work out a plan that we felt would be workable for our TBT community. Our goal was a basic plan wherein we would be able to get the best use of our property at what we hoped would be an affordable cost.

We felt that having the two levels with the school rooms on the upper floor at the same level as the current portable building would be the best way for school traffic to enter the property. Directly across the patio from the social hall, we would have the Temple offices on the lower level, along with the Rabbi, Cantor, and Administrator’s offices, and a libraryboard meeting room to make it easier for staff to get back and forth to the sanctuary and social hall. And, oh yes, bathrooms!! There was also the question that if we move the offices to the top level it makes them too far from the ECLC for security reasons. The rationale for moving the administrative offices to the new building is that now we will be able to do something with our social hall - enlarge it so we will have a “point of sale” place for rentals. Right now we can only legally accommodate 150 people in the social hall. When we move out the walls we will be able to accommodate 250 people, making a better size of place for rentals (and extra income for the Temple). Now we are too small for most parties and life cycle events of our own membership, and people have to look elsewhere. We have also started working on a preliminary drawing of what we would like that area of the building to look like.

One of the next steps that had to be taken was to have the property surveyed and the soil on the hill checked to see if it would be possible to construct the school where we wanted it placed.

In May 2005 I took the preliminary plans to the City of Fullerton. Again there was no point in continuing the project if the City would not allow us to do so. We passed through the Planning Department at the end of June, 2005 with certain stipulations, including the addition of block retaining walls on the north and south sides of the property for noise abatement, and adding parking in the upper lot. The City of Fullerton also has very specific height restrictions, which is a reason why we cannot add a third story to our present building. This is why the telephone tower is at the end of the driveway, rather than on the roof.

Our next step was to put out budget bids with various contractors to find out what our dream would actually cost. Bids were sent to four contractors. Two responded and were willing to bid on the project. We had more meetings with the City Planning Department to discuss the upper parking lot and how the water would drain down the hill when the dirt is moved and compacted, and if we will need a filtration system. There were so many details to get us to this point in time that I personally wouldn’t have known about (nor would most people) until I actually had to get them done.

Now came the biggest job of all, trying to figure out how we could raise the money we needed for our dream. I called around and got recommendations of names of a number of professional fund-raisers. I personally spoke to them all and when I finally found the one that I thought would be able to give us the most assistance at the best price, I had them come to TBT to interview with myself and various committee members. Next in the process was to come up with forty families out of which would be the twenty-five who would be willing to participate in a feasibility study. They had to be older members, members of longevity, members with families and children still in school, etc. so we would get a pretty good crosssection of the membership and how they felt about TBT and the project.

At the February 2006 board meeting, Ira Schreck of Schreck and Associates and his associate, Clark Bonner met with the Board of Directors and some other TBT members who were interested in the feasibility of the project. We started that meeting with a tour of the school building. Most of us had not been in there for many years. If there are any of you out there who would like to see it first hand, please call and we will arrange “tours.”

Since that time we have established a committee of members who are willing to solicit our community. We meet the second Monday of each month at the Temple. The meetings are open to anyone who is interested in what is going on. We have written a “Case Statement” about the project and produced a wonderful brochure to assist in the fund-raising. We are happy to report that we have a very dedicated group working on this committee. Henry Cohen and I are co-chairing this committee. We can report that the solicitations have just gotten started and we are already close to $500,000. We have also established a financial arm of the committee and have been working on a business plan.

We are asking those of you who really care about the future of Temple Beth Tikvah to join with us and make this dream a reality.