President: Josh David
As the High Holy Days approach, I want to wish
everyone a sweet new year from me as well as from
my family. Our very own Cantor Sarah Pscheidt will
once again be leading our services along with Rabbi
Dror. I look forward to seeing you during both Rosh
Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
One of my goals for the new year is to bring the
discussion of relocating Rodef Sholom to a conclusion.
In recent years, we have talked about the possibility of
relocating the Temple to a new site more centrally located
to our members. We have looked for a suitable
site in York County and in the northwest end of Newport
News. We have been unable to find a site that
works, and given the 2008 financial crisis and the
country’s continuing financial woes, a relocation that
includes substantial land acquisition costs in addition
to the cost of a new building now seems unrealistic.
As a result, the focus of relocation has turned to
studying the viability of a relocation to the UJC/JCC
property on Spring Road in Newport News. Co-locating
Rodef Sholom with the UJC is not a new concept,
but rather, was discussed years ago. In the current
thinking, the UJC would make a building site available
to Rodef Sholom for little or no cost, thereby substantially
reducing the overall cost of relocation.
We have hired Jonathan Frank and his company, Bay
Design, Architecture-Engineering, to perform a study
of the viability of moving Rodef Sholom to the UJC
versus staying at our current location on Whealton
Road. The premise of the study is not to prefer one
alternative over the other. If we are going to stay in
Hampton for the foreseeable future, then we need to
repair and upgrade our current building. The intent
would be to go far beyond the status quo by solving
the current plumbing, roof, and HVAC problems,
redoing our kitchens and bathrooms, adding new
facades at one or both entrances, upgrading floor,
wall, and ceiling finishes, and doing many other things
that would allow us to all feel excited that we are in
a modern and vibrant building even if not an entirely
new one.
The concept for a new building at the UJC would
be to design a structure smaller than our existing
building with the intent that we would share certain
facilities with the UJC so as to avoid duplication of
what is already in place. A part of Jonathan’s task is
to carefully study what facilities we could and should
share and how a new building would be designed and
configured to maximize the opportunity to do so.
I have been bothered for some time that mentally we
have “one foot out the door” at Whealton Road. If
it is economically viable to relocate and we decide
that relocation is the right thing for us to do, then we
need to make it a reality. If the cost of relocation is
not realistic in the current economic environment or
we decide that relocation is not otherwise what we
should do, then we need to make our current home
the sort of place that we would all like it to be.
Although this discussion has been going on for quite
some time, we are at the outset of our current study,
and it should not take long to accomplish. Once
Jonathan completes his work, we will have solid information
as to the cost of each alternative. The mission
will then be to decide what is best for Rodef Sholom
and to make that alternative a reality. I would hope
that many of you will participate in that discussion,
and I look forward to having those conversations with
you in the new year.
L’Shanah Tovah,
Josh David
