Winands Road Shul to Merge with Beth Tfiloh

The Winands Road Synagogue Center was the last remaining shul in Randallstown (Photo by William Linker)

The board of directors of Randallstown’s Winands Road Synagogue Center — which held its final Shabbat services last weekend — recently approved a merger with Pikesville’s Beth Tfiloh Congregation. The merger will be effective as of March 29.

Beth Tfiloh’s board of directors affirmed the merger. As a result, all of Winands Road Synagogue’s members are invited to attend services and continue their membership at Beth Tfiloh.

“When we combined with Beth Jacob over 10 years ago, it was truly a union made in heaven,” said Beth Tfiloh Congregation Senior Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg in a statement. “How fortunate we are to have another shidduch [match] with the same promise of adding to the vibrancy of our synagogue community.”

A Winands Road Synagogue member for nearly 50 years and congregational president since 2002, Nathan Sefret said in a statement, “My experience so far is that everyone is very friendly and inviting. The rabbis that I have met have been very welcoming and open.”

Founded in 1921, Beth Tfiloh has a membership of more than 1,200 families and is one of the largest Modern Orthodox Jewish congregations in the country.

Winands Road Synagogue was the last remaining synagogue in the once-thriving Jewish community of Randallstown. The congregation announced it would discontinue operations in December of 2016.

Morris A. Wise, the congregation’s vice president/treasurer, told Jmore at that time that the synagogue’s board of directors passed a resolution on Nov. 16, 2016, to “shut down operations.”

“We are an aging group, and we no longer have the nucleus of members to provide the financial strength to continue,” he said. “It was a very emotional decision to make.”

The congregation — which was at its location at 8701 Winands Rd. since 1968 — was an amalgamation of several different synagogues: the  Beth Yehuda, Beth Jacob Anshe Kurland, Kneseth Israel Anshe Sphard, Anshe Kolk-Wolyn and B’nai Reuben congregations. The eldest congregation, Beth Jacob Anshe Kurland, was founded in 1895.

Rabbi Sholom Salfer served as spiritual leader of the congregation since Sept. 1976. In March of 1990, the congregation held a “Mortgage Burning” ceremony.

In December of 2016, Wise said the main reason that the synagogue was closing was a significant drop in membership. He said the congregation was down to about 100 members.

“We have survived longer than any synagogue in Randallstown by far,” said Wise. “We have existed longer than anyone would have thought we would have. You have to make very difficult gut-wrenching decisions of this nature.”

In its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, Randallstown and the Liberty Road corridor had a large Jewish population with several congregations, including Adath Yeshurun, Beth Israel, Liberty Jewish Center, Moses Montefiore-Woodmoor Hebrew Congregation, Randallstown Synagogue Center, Temple Emanuel and Winands Road Synagogue Center.

Plans are being made for the eventual sale of the Winands Road Synagogue property. The Winands Road Synagogue Cemetery will be transferred to the Jewish Cemetery Association of Greater Baltimore.

In a message to Beth Tfiloh members, President Louis Baer and Board Chair Ricka Neuman said that they hope Winands Synagogue members “will find being part of the Beth Tfiloh to be an uplifting, inspirational, and enjoyable experience.”

The new members will be officially welcomed during Shabbat services on Saturday, April 14.

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