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EAST WINDSOR: Beth El members celebrate centennial

By Doug Carman, Staff Writer
   EAST WINDSOR – On April 30, 1911, members from five Jewish Hightstown families went to Trenton with some paperwork. They turned it over to the NJ organization/head synagogue, and a month later, the families were granted permission to name their group the First United Hebrew Association of Hightstown.
   This past Sunday, more than 200 people within the congregation, now called the Beth El Synagogue, gathered at its current location on Maple Stream Road in East Windsor.
   Children squeezed around two large birthday cakes celebrating their congregation’s 100th anniversary. At the same time, some adults jogged around town and others danced or went on a tour to study the synagogue’s history.
   Rabbi Jay Kornsgold said a lot has happened within the congregation over the last 100 years of its existence, but he expected it to only grow from here.
   ”We’ve come a long way,” Rabbi Kornsgold said. “Throughout these 100 years, we stuck to our core values… (I) look forward to continue to focus on our core values, to continue to have Beth El to be around.”
   Festivities began with a 5K run performed by several of the members, though some opted to do a scavenger walk, said Jacqueline Goldfinger, a spokeswoman for the synagogue. The congregation also planted a dogwood tree to commemorate the day.
   Rachel Katz, who studied the history of the synagogue leading to Sunday’s festivities, said the synagogue’s documents indicate the then-Orthodox congregation held services at the members’ homes back in 1911. Many of the congregation’s members were actually farmers at the time.
   In 1937, it moved to a building on Franklin Street in Hightstown. As the congregation continued to expand through the 70s, it traded its Orthodox doctrine for a conservative discipline. The congregation soon became too large for the building, and by 1977, it moved to its current location in East Windsor. As it relocated, it held a ceremonial march between the two locations, complete with police escorts who closed a section of U.S. Route 130 for the procession, as the Rabbi took the Torah from Hightstown to East Windsor.
   As the centennial anniversary approached May 15, a few members were already looking toward the congregation’s 150th year as they wrote well wishes for a time capsule.
   Steve Cohen of Hightstown penned a letter in Yiddish that read, “It says ‘50 years seems like a long time, but for Jews, it’s a short time in our history. Wishing you a nice and peaceful world full of light and Jewishness.”
   ”I’m hoping people in 50 years can read it,” Mr. Cohen said as he finished writing the note.