Synagogue

Philadelphia police arrested three youths yesterday and were seeking a fourth in an attack by vandals Saturday night on a Northeast Philadelphia synagogue. Seven windows in the back of Beth Emeth B'nai-Yitzhok, a Conservative synagogue at Bustleton Avenue and Unruh Street, were smashed by a group of teens shortly after a service celebrating Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Detective Al Cittino and Officer Ray Faggese, assigned to the Northeast Detective Division, arrested the three teenagers - ages 13, 14 and 15 - after receiving information from area residents.

A synagogue in Wynnewood has received a zoning variance on parking provisions to allow it to build a new wing of classrooms for students of its nursery school and Hebrew classes. In approving the variance for Temple Beth Hillel on Thursday, the Lower Merion Zoning Hearing Board said the expansion was aimed not at increasing enrollment, but merely at improving facilities. Therefore, the board said, it will allow the construction without the expansion of parking accommodations that would usually be required.

After overcoming one last hurdle, Kesher Israel congregation of West Chester is ready to begin constructing its $1.2 million sanctuary on 14 acres on Route 100, across from Caswallen Drive in West Goshen. Once Bill Petrauskas of the Philadelphia architecture firm of Shapiro Petrauskas Gelber showed plans for the proposed synagogue drive, which was moved to be directly across Route 100 from Caswallen, the supervisors approved the road alignment. The rest of the plan was approved previously.

In some theater productions, the set can be so visually compelling that it detracts from the play. The production of Cantorial at Cheltenham Center for the Arts carries this a step further: It makes not only the set, but the building of the set as interesting as anything else on stage. Ira Levin's play is set in a New York apartment that used to be a synagogue. The young couple who have moved in, a Jewish woman and her Christian fiance, are perplexed when they hear the voice of a cantor singing.

A group of Orthodox Jews will be able to keep a pathway leading to their Cherry Hill synagogue as part of an agreement with a local builder who wants to develop the land surrounding the trail. D'Anastasio Corp. had planned to build 17 homes on the west side of Cooper Landing Road between Chapel Avenue and the Church Road Circle. The firm's owner, Dante D'Anastasio, learned in a Monday Planning Board meeting that the nearby Congregation Sons of Israel was concerned about the walkway's future, and he agreed to build a new path.

Area Jews who would like to learn more about their faith are invited to enroll in Temple Beth Sholom's Adult Enrichment Program, which will run next week through early May and will include 21 courses, from basic prayers and protocol to conducting services, as well as offerings in art and books. "We try to make it as broad-based as we can, to include as many people . . . as we can," said Joel Spector, co-chairman of the Adult Enrichment Program. The courses can appeal to "synagogue-goers as well as nonsynagogue- goers," said Jackie Goldstein, publicist for the program, which is held at Temple Beth Sholom, a Conservative synagogue at Kresson and Cropwell Roads in Cherry Hill.

It began 50 years ago with a small group of women, friends who enjoyed sharing ideas over coffee at the old Hot Shoppes restaurant in Upper Darby. They decided that the town needed a synagogue, and they began raising money at card parties and rummage sales. They built their membership by going through the phone book and contacting those with common Jewish names. This is how Temple Israel was born. It was a robust congregation, with a synagogue that can accommodate 500 in its sanctuary.

TRIPOLI, Libya - A Libyan Jewish man who returned from exile in Italy to join the revolution against Moammar Gadhafi was blocked Monday from trying to restore Tripoli's main synagogue. David Gerbi said he went to clean garbage from the Dar al-Bishi synagogue Monday, a day after he broke through the entrance with a sledgehammer to great fanfare. But a messenger at the scene warned him that armed men were coming from all over Libya and would target him if he did not leave the area. Gerbi said he was told that a mass anti-Jewish demonstration was planned for Friday in the capital's central square.

Lehiyot is the Hebrew word for "becoming," and tonight, when the members of M'kor Shalom hold their annual Lehiyot Sabbat service, that word will have special significance. Efforts to make the synagogue accessible to the handicapped and welcoming to those with disabilities were recognized by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, an organization of Reform synagogues. After a national rabbinical committee reviewed the Cherry Hill synagogue's Lehiyot application, M'kor Shalom in March became one of seven Reform congregations in North America - and the only one in New Jersey - to receive recognition.

A proposed merger of two large Jewish congregations in the Cherry Hill area has likely fallen apart, congregation officials said yesterday. The joining of the Congregation Beth Jacob-Beth Israel of Cherry Hill and M'Kor Shalom of Mount Laurel ran into trouble this week when the M'Kor Shalom executive board voted against the plan. In May, Beth Jacob-Beth Israel reluctantly agreed to the idea as a way to meet burdensome mortgage payments on the group's new Evesham Road synagogue.

Camden County authorities say they have been notified that a man charged in the firebombing of a North Jersey synagogue possessed plans for a Berlin Township school. However, authorities were quick to say the man found the blueprints in a trash bin, and did not appear to have any plans to attack the school. The man, Aakash Dalal, 19, of New Brunswick, is charged with fellow defendant Anthony Graziano, in a Jan. 3 arson fire at Congregation K'Hal Adath Jeshurun in Paramus in which no one was injured.

Once, Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer tried bringing her son, George, to the annual Purim carnival at Mishkan Shalom. He lasted 10 minutes. For George, a 9-year-old who has autism, the scene was overwhelming: 100 kids tearing around the Roxborough synagogue's social hall; noisemakers clacking and beanbags flying; the smells of lollipops, licorice, and freshly baked hamantaschen cookies wafting through the room. Kaplan-Mayer, who for the last two years has directed a program at Mishkan Shalom for kids and families with special needs, believed there had to be a way to make Purim - a holiday that celebrates survival, courage, and reversals of fortune - work for kids like George.

HACKENSACK, N.J. - A second man charged in a series of attacks on synagogues, including the January firebombing of a house of worship where a rabbi and several family members were sleeping, pleaded not guilty Monday. Aakash Dalal, 19, of New Brunswick, appeared in court shackled at the waist. He is accused of encouraging fellow defendant Anthony Graziano by showing him how to make the bombs, though Dalal is not believed to have participated in the acts themselves. Attorney Chris DiLorenzo entered a plea of not guilty on Dalal's behalf.

HACKENSACK, N.J. - Authorities leveled additional charges Friday against a teenager accused in the firebombings of two North Jersey synagogues, saying he had plotted a similar attack on a Jewish community center and had conducted Internet searches for building Molotov cocktails and instructions on blowing up buildings. Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said investigators found multiple Molotov cocktails last week in a wooded area near the Jewish Community Center of Paramus, and they traced the evidence to a foiled attack they said suspect Anthony Graziano had planned for Jan. 7. Graziano, 19, was charged Friday with aggravated arson, bias intimidation, and other charges for the planned attack on the Paramus center.

HACKENSACK, N.J. - Authorities leveled additional charges Friday against a teenager accused in the firebombings of two North Jersey synagogues, saying he had plotted a similar attack on a Jewish community center and had conducted Internet searches for building Molotov cocktails and instructions on blowing up buildings. Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said investigators found multiple Molotov cocktails this week in a wooded area near the Jewish Community Center of Paramus, and they traced the evidence to a foiled attack they said suspect Anthony Graziano had planned for Jan. 7. Graziano, 19, was charged Friday with aggravated arson, bias intimidation, and other charges for the planned attack on the Paramus center.

HACKENSACK, N.J. - A teenager charged with attempted murder in the firebombings of two New Jersey synagogues pleaded not guilty Wednesday. Authorities announced they would conduct a sweep of synagogues within a 10-mile radius of 19-year-old Anthony Graziano's home to look for arson materials. The Bergen County Prosecutor's Office characterized the search as precautionary and did not say it was prompted by a specific threat or by new information the suspect had provided. Authorities have contended that Graziano searched the Internet for synagogues near his home in Lodi and carried out his attacks using a bicycle as transportation.

PARAMUS, N.J. - The suspect in two firebombings of North Jersey synagogues is a virulent anti-Semite who was so intent on sowing fear and destruction that he rode his bicycle to both locations when he could not get access to a car, authorities said Tuesday. Anthony Graziano of Lodi, an unemployed high school graduate, was arrested and charged in the Jan. 11 attack on a Rutherford synagogue and the Jan. 3 firebombing of a Paramus synagogue. He was being held Tuesday on $5 million bail.

NEWARK, N.J. - Religious and political leaders in northern New Jersey are displaying a sense of unity this week as police search for the perpetrators of a spate of fires and vandalism at several synagogues over the past month. More than two dozen lawmakers and community and religious leaders signed a statement yesterday condemning acts of hate and violence against the Jewish community in Bergen County, including the recent firebombing of a Rutherford synagogue. Signers of the statement said they chose to release it on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday to echo King's famous saying: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

The friends who got together two years ago over coffee were worried about the statistics. Synagogue membership along a critical hub of the Jewish community in Montgomery County was dwindling. The tree-lined streets, stone houses, and long-standing Jewish institutions along Old York Road were perhaps being passed over for trendier neighborhoods. The friends decided the region needed a boost. "That's how it started," said Scott Lempert, a lawyer from Elkins Park who was part of the group that began meeting two years ago. "But we realized we can't improve an area with just one [religious group]