A FAMILIAR LANDMARK

The following comments were made by John H. Alschuler on the occasion of Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois’ 8th Annual Tour that started at KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation on Sunday, May 6, 1990:

Architecture, like art, is a product of the times and the people that produced it.  This building was built in three different stages:

1. The main sanctuary was designed by my father, Alfred S. Alschuler, Sr., and completed in 1923.
2. The Sunday School addition north of the sanctuary facing Greenwood was completed in 1948 by Loebl, Schlossman and Bennett.
3. The Chapel and Community Hall were designed and built by my office in 1973, fifty years after the original building.

It was my father’s desire to make this a truly Jewish structure.  The problem was that for 2,000 years Jews were excluded from the craft guilds and building trades.  Synagogues through those years were assimilated into the architecture of the civilization that produced them – Gothic in Frankfurt, Germany; Greek, Roman, Moorish and Renaissance styles in various parts of Europe and all of the above in the United Sates. With the exception of a Star of David or a Hebrew inscription at the entrance, temples were difficult to differentiate from a post office, a library, museum or other monumental buildings.

The Stolz-Levi Walter Jacobs Memorial Library aims to provide books and resources that further Jewish study, learning and identity and to provide a space conducive to reading and study. 

The Library holds approximately 4,500 books, primarily in English in a variety of topics.

• Jewish sacred texts, commentaries, liturgy, ritual and interpretation
• Jews in history, in Israel and biographies of Jews
• Interfaith relations between Jews, Christians and Muslims
• Fiction by Jewish authors
• Jewish culture and cooking
• Dictionaries and grammars on Hebrew, Yiddish and Aramaic
• Children's and Young Adult's books on Jewish topics