About The Jewish Center

The Jewish Center was founded in 1949 as the first Jewish congregation in Princeton.  Since then, it has grown to include well over 700 families.  The Center affiliated with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism in 2002.  Though we follow the rituals as practiced by the Conservative movement, we welcome members and guests whose Jewish beliefs and practices may differ from these and we welcome interfaith families.
The Design and Features of The Jewish Center

The Exterior Walls

The outside walls of The Jewish Center depict three different biblical Jerusalem scenes in stone carvings as designed and executed by the sculptor John Goodyear.  Mr. Goodyear saw in the Moses and Miriam themes “a rich and complicated texture woven around the idea of law.”  The scenes also represent the importance of our ancestors.

  • Scene 1 (on the wall facing the parking lot) represents Moses being saved as an infant through the ingenious scheme of his mother, Yoheved.  It celebrates the courage, wisdom, and humanity of the women who acted “to break a cruelly unjust and unnatural law.”
  • Scene 2 (in the inner courtyard) represents Moses receiving the Ten Commandments.  “… Moses in presenting the tablets has found his people breaking the law by worshiping a false god.  Moses, in throwing down the tablets, has broken the law both literally and figuratively, but with this presentation, the law is restored.”
  • Scene 3 (on the courtyard wall facing the school) represents an image of an aged Miriam, Moses’ sister, at the well.  “Miriam’s long life, congruent with the life-sustaining well suggests a relationship between human and natural laws.”
The Main Sanctuary

The focal point of this and other Jewish sanctuaries is the Aron Kodesh (the Ark) located at the center of the wall facing you.  This is the eastern wall so that the congregation prays facing Jerusalem.  The sacred Torah scrolls are kept in the Ark.

The stained glass windows and the fabric art represent the first six days of creation as described in Genesis.

  • Day 1, God said, “Let there be light and there was light.”  The fabric construction to the left of the Ark expresses the creation of light out of the void, forming day and night.  Artist Joy Saville represented the void with deep, rich blacks, maroons, and blues, with day and night as light blues to lavender to deep navy.  The artist expresses the “essence” of the days with abstract imagery.  Some 250 colors in many different natural fabrics and textures were carefully selected by the artist.  Ms. Saville also designed the Tree of Life table covering that graces the Shulkhan, or reader’s table.
  • Day 2, God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the water, that it may separate water from water.  It was done and God called the expanse ‘sky’.”  In the window directly to the left of the Ark, stained glass artist Judith Wadia represented the water as elongated irregular shapes of stained glass in shades of blue and blue-greens.  The sky is represented by shades of purple and blues, while the firmament is imbued with milky whites and soft browns.
  • Day 3, God said, “Let the water below the sky be gathered into one dry area, that the dry land may appear.  It was done and God called the dry land ‘earth’ and the gathering of waters ‘seas’. God saw it was good and created vegetation, seed-bearing plants, and fruit trees.”  In the window directly to the right of the Ark, Ms. Wadia used yellow glass to represent dry land, gray and pink glass for the mountains, and rounded shapes of glass in grays and purple for the rocks.  Green glass was used to illustrate leaves and plants.
  • Day 4, God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate day from night.”  The fabric construction to the right of the Ark represents the creation of the sun, moon, and stars.  Ms. Saville used yellow and whites to speak of the sun with the first dawn as gold to orange to red.
  • Day 5, “God created all types of fish for the waters and birds to fly across the expanse that was sky.  God blessed them to be fertile and to multiply.”  In the window on the back wall of the right side of the Sanctuary, Ms. Wadia used blues, greens, purples, and pinks to embellish the sea and the sky.  Thicker black lines shaped like boomerangs against the sky represent the birds.  Fish were painted separately on the glass and then fired.
  • Day 6, “God created all types of creatures that roam the earth.  It was done and it was good.  Then God created man and woman in God’s image.  God blessed them and gave them the green plants for food.”  For this final working day, the most complex window was created.  The window, on the back wall of the left side of the Sanctuary, repeats and combines all that has occurred on the first five days, with the addition of animals and humans in abstract forms.  Ms. Wadia added a ram in light gray glass with a circular milk white horn bending down to drink, a cow in light tan glass, and in the Garden of Eden, a snake slithers as a thin wavy line.  Finally, a yellow light in expanding near vertical rays is Ms. Wadia’s representation of “man.”
  • Day 7, “the heaven and the earth were finished and God ceased from all the work that God had done.  And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy.”  The Ark, designed by Emmanuel Milstein, represents the seventh day of creation.  Shabbat is a time for Jews to rejuvenate, to study Torah, and to reconnect with family, friends, and oneself.  The burning bush theme of the Ark indicates an active presence of God in the Sanctuary and conveys the solemnity of worship.

Above the Ark hangs the Ner Tamid (Eternal Light) symbolizing God’s constant presence and the people’s eternal devotion.  Here, the Eternal Light, designed by Harold Rabinowitz, shines through the everlasting permanence of a translucent amethyst geode.

The Sanctuary’s architect, Abraham Goodman, conceived the plan for a circular Sanctuary where worshippers would share their prayers with each other.  The circular seating plan is traditional in Sephardic synagogues.  By creating a descent to the bimah, he was able to bring a dramatic contrast with the steps rising to the Ark, thus emphasizing the ancient rule of placing the Holy Ark higher than the rest of the Sanctuary.  In designing the bimah, Goodman continued to think in terms of ancient and traditional symbols.  Its twelve corner posts on the bimah railing remind us of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.  The twelve crystalline minerals mounted on the corner posts represent God’s command to Aaron to use gems on his priestly robes as a symbol of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.  (Ex.  39:10-14).

The small wooden Kiddush table in front of the bimah was designed for The Jewish Center in 1966 by George Nakashima.  This table is representative of the work that made Nakashima world-famous.  The use of natural finishes and contrasting woods produces an effect in which the burl dances before one’s eyes.

The Holocaust Torah

A special Torah scroll – our Holocaust Torah – is displayed in the Lobby of The Jewish Center.

This Torah is one of the 1,564 Torah scrolls that came to the Westminster Synagogue in London in 1964.  These scrolls had been gathered together in Prague before and during World War II from the desecrated synagogues of Bohemia and Moravia by the Nazi official in charge of the Czech “protectorate”.  The scrolls themselves lay piled in the unused Michle Synagogue for over twenty years.

The Memorial Scrolls Committee of the Westminster Synagogue was charged with the responsibility of distributing these Torah rocks.  Green glass was used to illustrate scrolls throughout the world.  When a request from a congregation was received by the committee, a scroll was given to a synagogue on permanent loan.

Our scroll was taken by the Nazis from Susice, a town in Czechoslovakia, to a collection point during World War II.  There, all ceremonial objects seized from the Jews would be displayed in a museum for future generations to witness the artifacts of an exterminated ethnic group.  Trucks brought Torah scrolls from throughout Central Europe as well as Torah crowns, breastplates, and books.  One thousand years of Jewish life in Central Europe were reflected in these 200,000 objects – remnants of the Six Million who once lived.

We humbly received this Torah in the name of every Jew from Susice and in the name of every Jew who perished in the Holocaust.

Synagogue Decorum

Please enter and exit the Sanctuary quietly.  Entering or leaving is not allowed during the Torah service and the sermon.  Further, people must not move around the Sanctuary when the congregation is standing.

When attending with very young children, feel free to use the babysitting room downstairs or to take your children out for a short break.

Guests are reminded to dress respectfully in an appropriate way for worship.  Women must have shoulders covered.  Suits or jackets, or collared shirts and pants other than jeans, are considered appropriate attire for men and boys.

All males are required to wear a kippah (head covering) in the Sanctuary.  To cover one's head as a sign of humility or reverence was and remains a widespread custom in the Middle East, the area where Judaism originated.

Jewish men customarily wear a tallit (prayer shawl) at the morning service; one is required when going onto the bimah (the raised area in the center of the Sanctuary) for an honor.  The tallit recalls the
style of garment worn in ancient Israel.  The religious significance of the tallit lies in the fringes at each of its corners, in fulfillment of the Biblical command: “That they make them a fringe upon the corners of their garments, that you may look upon it and remember the commandments of the Lord.”  The stripes on the tallit are sometimes blue, the sky blue being a symbol of Heaven; the white background symbolizes peace and purity.  A child does not pray with a tallit until the age of Bar/Bat Mitzvah.  We strongly encourage Jewish women to wear a kippah and/or a tallit.  Kippot and tallitot are available in both entrance lobbies.

Photography, video, and tape recording and use of any electrical devices are prohibited on Shabbat at The Jewish Center.  In particular, cell phone and telephone use are prohibited anywhere in the synagogue on Shabbat.  Please silence all pagers and electronic watches.  Smoking anywhere on the property is prohibited.

Thank you for helping us to keep our service, our synagogue and our tradition meaningful and joyful.