Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

LGBT Synagogue Finds New Home, Complete With Assyrian Art

Every Tisha B’Av, rabbis around the world try to come up with new and creative ways to remind their congregations of the history of the two Holy Temples that once stood in Jerusalem. Students of Jewish history readily recall 586 B.C.E. as the year that the Babylonians destroyed the First Temple, and 70 C.E. as the one in which the Romans destroyed the Second.

Many, however, are a bit foggier on 722 B.C.E., when the Assyrians conquered the northern Kingdom of Israel and sent its inhabitants into exile, eventually to become known to us as the Ten Lost Tribes. Soon Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of New York’s Congregation Beit Simchat Torah will need only point to the walls of her synagogue’s new building to jog people’s memories.

The New York Times reported that the LGBT synagogue has ended 40 years of wandering in the Manhattan real estate desert by purchasing two adjacent storefront condominium units at 130 West 30th St. In a stroke of fortune, the 1929 landmark building designed by Cass Gilbert boasts an array of Assyrian mirror-image bas reliefs and sculptures.

Just as the building of the Holy Temple in the southern Kingdom of Judah cost a great deal, so too does this temple require a large amount of Jewish financial investment. CBST acquired the property for $7.1 million, and the redesign and renovation of the interior space will cost an additional $7 million.

Rabbi Kleinbaum can’t wait to be able to officiate at weddings that will take place in the new space, now that same-sex marriage is legal in the State of New York. She even thinks the congregation’s finding this particular building is bashert.

Kleinbaum also sees signs of homosexuality in the Assyrian artwork. After all, those two lions’ heads over the entrance on West 30th Street are both male. And she conjectured for the Times that there may be more than meets the eye in terms of the relationship between the two men who appear in the the chariot motifs.

For Tisha B’Av, the rabbi explained that her congregation is ready to embrace the Assyrian art in its soon-to-be-new home and to learn from the Jewish past. “The point is not that we hate Assyrians,” she told the Times. “We’re told that there was a causeless hatred — sinat chinam — among the Jews. The Assyrians were just the force of history that made it happen. That has a lot to say to us in the modern world: that hatred breeds terrible violence and war.”

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.