Caption: Amy Goldman (r.) and her sister Diane applaud with onlookers after box with historic documents is placed behind granite block of Kane St. Synagogue yesterday.
Nov. 18, 2003 - At historic Kane St. Synagogue in Cobble Hill, the home of Brooklyn's oldest Jewish congregation, there is a story behind every stone.
The last granite block refitted to the synagogue's facade in a special ceremony yesterday morning, though, had the most tales to tell: Behind it was placed a coffer of artifacts gathered during the congregation's storied 148-year history.
Brooklyn politicians and community leaders joined Rabbi Samuel Weintraub yesterday in celebrating the start of construction on a new structure - Sol and Lillian Goldman Educational Center - that will rise behind that 19th century facade.
The center will be named for the Goldmans - now deceased - who were longtime members of the congregation and donated $1 million to help pay for the new structure.
"Once the center is completed, we'll have a new, philosophically open home that reaches to the community in ways our former building didn't permit," said Weintraub.
Assemblywoman Joan Millman (D-South Brooklyn) said the five-year, $4-million project is a "testament to Jewish people, because the synagogue has always changed as the neighborhood changes around it."
The new Goldman Center will offer an array of classes, including Hebrew instruction, as well as lectures, concerts and community events.
Amy Goldman, daughter of the benefactors, placed the final, polished stone of the center's facade. For half a century, the granite block, which was part of the original structure, had been covered with brown paint, said Weintraub.
Behind the stone is a box, which includes:
Documents from the synagogue's first meeting in 1856, when it was named Baith Israel. In 1908, Baith Israel merged with another congregation, Anshei Emes.
An 1855 Brooklyn Eagle article about the groundbreaking for a Protestant church at 236 Kane St. That building would later be used briefly by the Salvation Army in 1887 and was bought by synagogue members in 1905. It's been their home ever since.
Apart from the historic facade, however, nearly all of the three-story educational center will be built new from the ground up. A new two-story modernist glass structure will connect the center to the synagogue's neo-gothic sanctuary, which is next door.
Work is expected to be completed next fall, Weintraub said.
In the meantime, Borough President Marty Markowitz was inspired to issue a challenge to a famed upper East Side Jewish cultural and learning center. "I want to say to the folks at the 92nd St. Y, 'Watch out! Our new educational center is coming!,'" Markowitz said to cheers.
(This article was published by the New York Daily News on Nov. 19, 2003, and written by staff writer Hugh Son)
