Prayer Books

After laboring for 12 years to revive historic Congregation B'nai Abraham in Queen Village, Rabbi Yochonon Goldman will begin Yom Kippur services Friday evening with a sense of hope. "Thank God, I can say we are no longer focusing on surviving, but on thriving," Goldman said this week after lugging a stack of High Holiday prayer books into the vestibule of his capacious, Old World sanctuary. Thriving is in the eyes of the rabbi. The oldest Philadelphia synagogue in continuous use, B'nai Abraham a century ago drew as many as 1,000 worshipers - women upstairs, men on the main floor - to its Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services.

MORRIS, Ala. IRS extends deadline for tax-owing town The Internal Revenue Service granted this town a reprieve yesterday, giving it another 90 days to ante up $60,000 in back taxes or face a shutdown. "They have agreed to 90 days. We now have until Jan. 6, 1998," Mayor Mike Jefcoat said yesterday. "It would be very easy to jump on the anti-IRS bandwagon, but this appears to be money we legitimately owe. " The town of 1,400 residents had been facing a Thursday deadline to pay $60,000 in back taxes, penalties and interest.

When Jacob Abraham arrived at Congregation Beth Harambam for morning services Saturday, all he could do was watch silently as police and fire officials carried out the charred remains of prayer books and Torahs that he and other congregants had worked so hard to acquire. What he wanted to do, Abraham said yesterday, was fall to his knees and pray to God - pray to understand why someone had entered his Orthodox synagogue in Northeast Philadelphia, piled prayer books on the floor, and lit a match that sent fire sweeping through the 11-year-old synagogue.

It's the kind of store you wouldn't expect to be very busy, but Byzantine Rite Church Supplies in Northern Liberties is straining at the seams, trying to meet customer demand. Harried store manager Steve Prosak doesn't walk, he practically runs around the shop. He slows down long enough to say he sold his last two Ukrainian Catholic prayer books that morning. Pointing to four, gold-edged Ukrainian-language Bibles, Prosak says: "They just came in today. We got a case of these Bibles last year.

Morris Zacher, 71, of Bryn Mawr, a former lawyer, businessman, and religion teacher, died Wednesday, Sept. 22, of pancreatic cancer at Penn Hospice at Rittenhouse. Mr. Zacher graduated from Cheltenham High School in 1955 and from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Law School. During a summer of law school, his wife, Linda, said, he studied on a Ford Foundation fellowship at the Hague Academy of International Law in the Netherlands. As part of his military duty, his wife said, he was the manager of an apartment building at Army Garrison Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, N.Y. Mr. Zacher joined the Philadelphia law firm of Astor Weiss in the 1960s, then became a partner in the firm of Koss & Zacher.

With shovels and prayers, members of Beit-Harambam Congregation yesterday began putting what was left of their fire-ravaged synagogue - prayer books and holy artifacts - to rest. As a testament to their spiritual value, a Bible, a prayer shawl and other religious objects damaged by the arson fire that destroyed the Northeast Philadelphia synagogue May 27 were buried in a shallow grave in the wet, heavy earth. Members of the small congregation, many of them Israeli and Russian immigrants, gathered beside their charred synagogue and said kaddish, the prayer of mourning.

After 30 minutes of looking, Elaine Breyer was ready to give up. "Where are you, Joanie?" said Breyer, 81, resting on a stone bench at Mount Sharon Cemetery in Springfield, Delaware County. She had walked row after row of arched gray monuments and couldn't find the grave of her sister. It had been 10 years since Breyer had visited the grave site of her sibling, who had died of renal failure at age 27. Breyer was visiting the cemetery with a group of seniors who were on a similar mission.

In response to the Sept. 11 attacks, the Jewish Publication Society has distributed more than 1,400 free copies of its edition of the Book of Psalms to Jewish military personnel and families who lost loved ones in New York. "Psalms is traditionally consulted by people who are seeking solace and inspiration," said Robin Rothenberg, director of institutional development for the Philadelphia-based publishing house. Eventually, the Jewish Publication Society intends to distribute 2,500 copies, at a cost of $10,000.

Thinking of becoming a DJ? On Thursday, Ed Trusello, who runs Clements Auction in the Delaware County community of Norwood, will give you a chance to gear up. Starting at 6:30 p.m., he will sell off more than 100 lots of heavy-duty DJ equipment, including amplifiers, turntables, speakers and mixers that he says could make the Spectrum quiver. It is one of two liquidation sales set for next week. The sound equipment, with a retail value of $50,000, belonged to a professional DJ group, Trusello said.

In a deliberate effort to focus more on what they had in common than on what divided them, 30 spiritual leaders representing 10 Christian denominations belted out the 19th-century hymn "The Church's One Foundation Is Jesus Christ Her Lord. " The Christian Unity Colloquium, sponsored by the Lower Bucks Center for Church and Community, challenged participants last week to act on recommendations made in the working document of the Fifth World Conference on Faith and Order, planned for August in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

After 30 minutes of looking, Elaine Breyer was ready to give up. "Where are you, Joanie?" said Breyer, 81, resting on a stone bench at Mount Sharon Cemetery in Springfield, Delaware County. She had walked row after row of arched gray monuments and couldn't find the grave of her sister. It had been 10 years since Breyer had visited the grave site of her sibling, who had died of renal failure at age 27. Breyer was visiting the cemetery with a group of seniors who were on a similar mission.

After laboring for 12 years to revive historic Congregation B'nai Abraham in Queen Village, Rabbi Yochonon Goldman will begin Yom Kippur services Friday evening with a sense of hope. "Thank God, I can say we are no longer focusing on surviving, but on thriving," Goldman said this week after lugging a stack of High Holiday prayer books into the vestibule of his capacious, Old World sanctuary. Thriving is in the eyes of the rabbi. The oldest Philadelphia synagogue in continuous use, B'nai Abraham a century ago drew as many as 1,000 worshipers - women upstairs, men on the main floor - to its Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services.

Morris Zacher, 71, of Bryn Mawr, a former lawyer, businessman, and religion teacher, died Wednesday, Sept. 22, of pancreatic cancer at Penn Hospice at Rittenhouse. Mr. Zacher graduated from Cheltenham High School in 1955 and from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Law School. During a summer of law school, his wife, Linda, said, he studied on a Ford Foundation fellowship at the Hague Academy of International Law in the Netherlands. As part of his military duty, his wife said, he was the manager of an apartment building at Army Garrison Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, N.Y. Mr. Zacher joined the Philadelphia law firm of Astor Weiss in the 1960s, then became a partner in the firm of Koss & Zacher.

The dark sky was graying faintly on the horizon yesterday as dozens of bearded men in wind-whipped prayer shawls stepped onto the roof of Fels Planetarium to await a rare dawn. There atop the Franklin Institute, with their tefillin, or prayer boxes, exactingly centered on their foreheads, they bowed and murmured, mystifying the small sons and grandsons shivering beside them. In a centuries-old tradition honoring both Creation and Creator, observant Jews worldwide marked the return of the sun to what they believe is its original place in the divine inception of the heavens - an event that, according to Jewish tradition, occurs just once every 28 years.

One document captures the anger of insurrection, the other the surrender of devotion. One is spare, the other lush. This weekend, from worlds apart, two remarkable religious books are going on display to the general public here. The Islamic Circle of North America has brought in an ornate Koran from Iran that, at six feet high and 1,500 pounds, is billed as the world's largest. Its 606 hand-painted canvas pages will be on view at the Convention Center during the group's national assembly, which begins tomorrow.

In response to the Sept. 11 attacks, the Jewish Publication Society has distributed more than 1,400 free copies of its edition of the Book of Psalms to Jewish military personnel and families who lost loved ones in New York. "Psalms is traditionally consulted by people who are seeking solace and inspiration," said Robin Rothenberg, director of institutional development for the Philadelphia-based publishing house. Eventually, the Jewish Publication Society intends to distribute 2,500 copies, at a cost of $10,000.

One effective antidote to our current age of anxiety and skepticism is a brief trip back into the age of faith. That's what "Leaves of Gold" provides, in the form of some of the most beautiful objects ever created, all to celebrate the power and majesty of God. "Leaves of Gold" is an exhibition of illuminated (illustrated) manuscripts produced between the 12th and 16th centuries - from the Middle Ages, the historical Age of Faith, to the Renaissance. The show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art gathers more than 80 works from 11 organizations, and ranges from whole books to individual pages to pictures cut from hand-lettered texts.

With shovels and prayers, members of Beit-Harambam Congregation yesterday began putting what was left of their fire-ravaged synagogue - prayer books and holy artifacts - to rest. As a testament to their spiritual value, a Bible, a prayer shawl and other religious objects damaged by the arson fire that destroyed the Northeast Philadelphia synagogue May 27 were buried in a shallow grave in the wet, heavy earth. Members of the small congregation, many of them Israeli and Russian immigrants, gathered beside their charred synagogue and said kaddish, the prayer of mourning.

Eli Gabay's quiet sorrow hung in the acrid air yesterday as he surveyed, again, the charred remains of the building built on faith and destroyed by fire. The new carpet installed by congregants of Beit Harambam was covered with ash. The windows they'd carefully replaced in recent months - shattered. The food they had brought to celebrate the Sabbath - immolated. And the holy books! When firefighters responded early Saturday morning and found that prayer books, bibles and Talmuds had been used for kindling, they threw them into the backyard to stem the blaze that had ripped through the roof and riddled the floor of the modest split-level in Northeast Philadelphia.

When Jacob Abraham arrived at Congregation Beth Harambam for morning services Saturday, all he could do was watch silently as police and fire officials carried out the charred remains of prayer books and Torahs that he and other congregants had worked so hard to acquire. What he wanted to do, Abraham said yesterday, was fall to his knees and pray to God - pray to understand why someone had entered his Orthodox synagogue in Northeast Philadelphia, piled prayer books on the floor, and lit a match that sent fire sweeping through the 11-year-old synagogue.