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Temple to sprout after long, home-grown effort

Forty families nurtured a dream for close to a decade that will soon become a reality near the Reserve.

By SHERYL KAY
Published April 22, 2005

TAMPA PALMS - Like so many visions, this one hit Tracy Maurer while she was in traffic.

It took the Hunter's Green private investigator an hour to drive to Friday night services at her South Tampa synagogue. "Even without rush hour, it was still a good 40-minute drive," Maurer said.

The solution? A synagogue right here in New Tampa.

Eight years later, the founding members of Ohev Shalom are inching closer to their dream.

Like New Tampa traffic, it has required great patience.

Workers broke ground in March at Stonington and Tampa Palms Boulevard, near the Reserve. Barring a busy hurricane season, the temple will open its doors this fall or early winter.

"None of us had ever started a synagogue before," said Maurer's husband, Craig, the temple's vice president. "We had no idea of how difficult this trek would be and how long it would take, and it was very long."

The Maurers, both in their 30s, are among 40 families who have nurtured this dream for close to a decade.

The group, led by Tampa Palms internist Mark Weissman, first scoured a Tampa Jewish Federation mailing list for New Tampa families. They sent out fliers, and about 50 people showed up at the first meeting.

They worshiped in a doctors' waiting room. When they outgrew that space, they moved to their current location at Compton Park. When the roster hit 40 families, they launched a building fund, raising about $685,000.

"There's not another congregation that we know of that decided to build after four years with 40 families," Craig Maurer said. "We saw that our membership was starting to level out, and you know what they say - If you build it, they'll come - so we built it."

The building plans have, indeed, generated a buzz. Several new families attended Ohev Shalom's recent deli night, and two became members on the spot.

Organizers are pleased with their demographic mix: A third are young couples with infants, a third are middle-aged adults with teenage children, and the remaining third are seniors.

Although the original charter called for Ohev Shalom to be a part of the Conservative Jewish community, the congregation found that some of the more strict rules were not helping to attract members. After careful consideration, the group decided to be unaffiliated with any specific denomination of Judaism.

"It's enabled us to take the good from each section of Judaism and put it all together so we wouldn't be turning anyone away," Weissman said.

Relations with the long-established congregations in the bay area are excellent, Craig Maurer said. Area synagogues have loaned Ohev Shalom a Torah, the handwritten scroll containing the five books of Moses; and dozens of prayer books, as these items are expensive.

Still, Maurer wonders what will happen when Ohev Shalom has a permanent building and therefore poses competition for members.

"It's not so much that we'll draw from their areas," he said. "I don't think anyone is driving up here from South Tampa, but members who live in this area will be drawn to us because they live right here."

Board members anticipate the synagogue will officially open in December.

"My daughter was seven days old at the first meeting we had, and now she's 7 years old," said founding member Nancy Wall, 41. "I can't tell you what an amazing experience it was seeing her running around on that ground the day we broke ground. It's really a dream becoming reality."

- For more information about Temple Ohev Shalom, call 813 632-9900. Contact reporter Sheryl Kay at skreporter@hotmail.com

[Last modified April 21, 2005, 08:33:10]