the 941

The 1985 groundbreaking for the expanded Sarasota-Manatee Jewish Federation campus

Sarasota-Manatee Jewish Federation Turns 50!
Noon-4 p.m. Sun., Nov. 8, 580 McIntosh Road, Sarasota, free, 371-4546 or smjf.org.

When Sheldon Gensler was asked in 1970 to become president of the Sarasota Jewish Community Council (the organization that would become the Sarasota-Manatee Jewish Federation), he insisted on three conditions: an office, a secretary and an executive director. While Sarasota Jews had drafted the articles of federation to create the Council in 1958, resources were slim, and the group to that point had done little besides raise funds for the United Jewish Appeal — which in turn donated the money to the young state of Israel.

When the Council met Gensler’s demands, he became the organization’s first president, and he rented a space across the hall from the law office at 1900 Main he had established when he moved to Sarasota in 1966. With Gensler at the helm, the Council quickly took on a larger role in Sarasota Jewish life: providing social services, hosting get-togethers and publishing a monthly newsletter dedicated to Jewish issues.

“We did everything we do today, but out of an office,” says the 89-year-old Gensler, seated in a large conference room in the main building of the sprawling 34-acre campus the Federation now calls home. “We became the spokesman for the Jewish community.” Gensler — silver-haired, with bifocals resting on his nose — marvels at how far the Federation has come between when he was president and today, a day that finds the Federation gearing up to celebrate its 50th birthday with a free blowout party on Sunday afternoon.

Always quick to chuckle, Gensler issues a small laugh, and points around the conference room, thinking of the Council’s tiny space back at 1900 Main: “The office there was smaller than this room.”

ON DEC. 8, 1925, 20 Sarasotans — led by the influential Philip Levy — filed a document that created the first recognized Jewish organization in the area: the Jewish Community Center of Sarasota. The first meeting of the fledgling group was held the following year — 35 people attended — and the group’s first goal was simple: to organize Yom Kippur services for that autumn.

“People forget that this was once a small Jewish community, with very little activity,” Gensler (pictured at a 1974 black tie fundraiser, at right) says. “It was like a desert.”

As the number of Jewish people in Sarasota grew, though, the Center began raising money to establish a dedicated synagogue. The City of Sarasota donated land between Sixth and Seventh Streets, along what is now U.S. 301, and Jewish life quickly became centered around Temple Beth Sholom, the new house of worship. Jewish merchants opened shops in the neighborhood, often living above the storefronts.

“It was like a little village,” remembers Ed Kalin, who moved to Sarasota in 1950 to open his extant Kanes furniture store. “I was the 49th member of the temple.”

The decades after the founding of Beth Sholom were full of firsts: The first Jewish weddings were held, the first bar and bat mitzvahs were celebrated. But through World War II, the Jewish community remained small, and Beth Sholom remained open only on Shabbat.

By 1954, though, the membership had grown enough that religious differences between Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Jews forced a schism, and the tight-knit Jewish community began to splinter, theologically — a second temple, Emanu-El, was established — and geographically. As a result, the need for an umbrella organization that would represent the interests of all Sarasota Jews grew stronger. The Sarasota Jewish Community Council formed four years later.

Demographic changes forced the organization to broaden its mission. As more young Jewish families moved to the area, they wanted a place where their children could receive a religious education. As more of the older generation retired, they needed help finding affordable housing and health care.

The Federation also had to fight discrimination. There were so few Jewish children in public schools in Sarasota that teachers often ignored Jewish holidays, regularly scheduling tests for those days and refusing to excuse absences for religious observation. Gensler remembers meeting with the superintendent of Sarasota County to hammer out an understanding. Gensler chalks it up to simple ignorance about other faiths: “They didn’t know they were doing anything wrong.”

But Sarasota could not hope to avoid more overt displays of hate. In 1960, someone graffitied a swastika on the Sixth Street temple, with the words “Jew Die Heil Hitler” scrawled underneath.

Despite all the obstacles, though, the Jewish community has thrived in Sarasota, and so has the Federation. In the 1980s, the organization created the Jewish Family Agency, the Jewish Housing Council and the Jewish Community Center. “We were able to develop great leadership and new ideas,” Gensler says. In 1985, the Federation broke ground on the McIntosh Road property where its offices are now located, and where Sunday’s party will go down.

Gensler estimates that there are now between 16,000 and 18,000 Jewish residents in Sarasota and Manatee, quite an increase from when 20 Sarasotans gathered together back in 1925 to address the needs of those who shared their faith. Gensler chuckles again, and smiles: “We’ve come a long way, baby. I’ll tell you that.”

For the historical sections of this article, I relied heavily on Rabbi Barry Konovitch’s “Fifty Years of Jewish Life in Sarasota,” written in 1977 and available at the Sarasota County History Center. Many thanks to historian Jeff LaHurd for his invaluable help tracking down archival material.

Photos courtesy Sarasota-Manatee Jewish Federation archives

Bookmark to:

Posted in Editor's Desk, News, Sarasota-Manatee | Leave a comment