Mystery Building’s Origins Solved – Maybe
‘Mystery building’ offers a unique glimpse into the life of old Jewish East Baltimore.
July 24, 2009

Alan H. Feiler
Managing Editor

Nathan Goldberg thumbed through the pages of the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES two weeks ago and immediately spotted something in a photo that he says he’s known well all of his life. It was of an 84-year-old East Baltimore house of worship building, with an inlaid Star of David at the top with what appears to be a dollar sign in the middle.

“I was born on that corner,” said Mr. Goldberg, 90, alluding to the intersection of South Caroline and East Baltimore streets, in an area residents there now call Upper Fells Point. “I don’t know anything about that symbol, but I know that building was never, ever a shul. I don’t know what it was used for, but I never saw a soul go in there. They were missionaries, trying to convert Jews, you know, Jews for Jesus.

“We were told to keep away. But I never saw the door of that building open.”

Now a Pikesville resident and Beth El congregant, Mr. Goldberg was one of numerous JEWISH TIMES readers — many of them elderly and former residents of that area — who responded to the article about the “mystery building” that appeared in the July 10th issue.

The abandoned, padlocked building — which features a cornerstone bearing an engraved quote in Hebrew from Psalms (chapter 118, verse 22) and the Christian Bible (Matthew 21:42) — was not familiar to officials at the Jewish Museum of Maryland nor to Gilbert Sandler, a local Jewish historian and author. Furthermore, spiritual leaders of the area’s two leading Messianic congregations reported that they were unaware of the structure.

(Minister Kevin Pitts of First Apostolic Faith Institutional Church, which is located a couple of doors down, said that his outfit owns the building but that he did not know the facility’s history.)

Myriad phone calls and e-mails from readers, history enthusiasts, architectural historians and preservation advocates helped identify the building, which according to city land and business records was the onetime home of the Salem Hebrew Lutheran Mission of Baltimore City Inc., a Messianic group founded by Henry Einspruch in 1923.

Einspruch, a Jew who converted to Christianity in his native Poland, immigrated to the United States in the early 20th century and eventually worked for the United Lutheran Church. He became the founder of Lederer Messianic Jewish Communications, the world’s largest publisher of Messianic materials now based in Clarksville, Md., and author of a book titled “The Yiddish New Testament.” Einspruch died in 1978.

“[Salem Hebrew Lutheran] was a society that developed to help Jewish immigrants,” said Barry Rubin, spiritual leader of Clarksville’s Emmanuel Messianic Jewish Congregation and executive director of Lederer since 1988. “They built the facility there because of the Jews at that time who lived in that area. I knew they were somewhere in East Baltimore.”

The building, which does not have an address marker on its frontage on Caroline Street, is actually connected, via L-shape design, to a nearby property at 1503 E. Baltimore St., which served as its official address. Mr. Goldberg said he recalls that visitors entered a “reading room” at the Baltimore Street site that was operated by Salem Hebrew Lutheran.

The mission was owned and operated under the auspices of the United Lutheran Church, but it was later funded by the Lederer Foundation, the precursor to Lederer Messianic Jewish Communications. (For many years, the Lederer Foundation was located in Upper Park Heights, in the midst of what some locals call “Shul Row.”)

While many Jews consider Messianic Judaism a modern phenomenon, older respondents to the article noted that Hebrew-Christian missionaries were somewhat prevalent in East Baltimore in the early 20th century, preaching to Jewish immigrants and their offspring, usually with only meager results.

One caller, Pikesville resident Alvin Book, noted that another Messianic congregation operated near his former East Baltimore home, led by a Rev. Aaron Kligerman. (That congregation was the Emmanuel Neighborhood Center, according to Mr. Rubin, the precursor to his own outfit. It was founded in 1915, according to Mr. Rubin’s research.)

Dr. Deborah R. Weiner, research historian and family history coordinator at the Jewish Museum of Maryland, said Christian proselytizing was not uncommon in urban Jewish immigrant communities from the 19th century until World War II.

“People think it’s new, with Jews for Jesus and the rise of fundamentalism in the 1970s,” she said. “But the idea of Christians doing missionary work in Jewish communities goes way back.”

In fact, Dr. Weiner said she found in her research that the Jewish Educational Alliance, to combat evangelists, often sent out advocates of normative Judaism to the streets of East Baltimore. “It was like the battle of the street corners,” she said, chuckling.

As far as the “dollar sign” emblem in the Star of David, that symbol is in actuality a monogram of the letters “IHS,” which is a contracted version of Jesus’ name in Greek, according to Rev. Jason Poling of the New Home Community Church in Pikesville, and others. The monogram represents the letters iota, eta, sigma, and they are frequently grouped together on gravestones in Christian cemeteries and in depictions of the crucifixion.

“As for its placement in the middle of a Star of David,” wrote Rev. Poling, “I can’t say that I’ve seen that before, but such a combination along with the cornerstone inscription would certainly lead me to suspect the building to be the home of a Messianic congregation.”

Bubbie’s Shul?

Eventually, as Jews moved away from East Baltimore and toward the northwest suburbs, Salem Hebrew Lutheran appears to have either gone out of existence or morphed into the Lederer Foundation. (Mr. Rubin said he believes Salem Hebrew Lutheran might have become another congregation.)

In 1972, the Lederer Foundation sold the building to a non-denominational church outfit called the Little Tabernacle, run by the late Rev. Joseph S. “Pastor Sid” Rigell and his wife, Betsy. They operated there until 1996.

“In the ’20s, they used the chapel as a Messianic house of worship, but by the early 1970s they were using it only as a mailing room for their publications,” said Mrs. Rigell, who now lives in Maryville, Tenn. “The Einspruchs moved out because not many Jews were living down there anymore. We used it as a chapel and lived above [at 1503 E. Baltimore St.]. We transferred it into a worship center.

“It was a beautiful building,” she said. “We used to have lunch meetings there every Thursday and people from all over the area would come, including Jewish people. The spirit of God was in that building.” (Mrs. Rigell noted that the monogram and cornerstone predated Little Tabernacle’s purchase of the building.)

So the mystery of the South Caroline Street building is solved, right?

Hmmm. Well, not exactly.

One phone caller, Owings Mills resident Sheldon Minkove, insists that the building is the former home of the “Caroline Street Shul,” to which his grandmother belonged. “It was a real shul. I remember going there for Yom Kippur with my bubbie, who used to walk 15 blocks from Orleans Street to get there,” said Mr. Minkove, 70, a retired accountant who belongs to Chizuk Amuno Synagogue.

In fact, Mr. Minkove, who grew up in East Baltimore, said that his grandfather — for whom he is named — died after attending Shabbat services there because he drank arsenic that was placed accidentally in a kiddush cup. (Mr. Minkove said the arsenic was to combat a rodent infestation.)

“The last time I was there was when I was a kid, right after [World War II],” he said. “But I always remember that shul so clearly. It was my bubbie’s shul.”

When learning that documentation clearly demonstrates that the building was the home of Salem Hebrew Lutheran, Mr. Minkove responded, “It may have become a Messianic congregation after the shul closed sometime after the mid-’40s, but it was a shul, the Caroline Street Shul.”

However, Gilbert Sandler and former residents of the area say they do not know of any normative synagogue that operated in that building, nor have they ever heard of a “Caroline Street Shul.” (No mention of a “Caroline Street Shul” is mentioned in the book “Synagogues, Temples And Congregations Of Maryland: 1830-1990,” by Earl Pruce.)

“Trust me, that building was never a shul,” said Nathan Goldberg, who ran an electrical contracting company business in that neighborhood until the 1990s. “And I tell you, I never saw those doors open.” •

Among others, the writer would like to sincerely thank Efrem M. Potts, Fred B. Shoken, Sheldon A. Stern and Dr. Deborah R. Weiner for their assistance and diligence in researching this subject. Check out Alan Feiler’s blog entry about the “mystery building”.