Fund for the Future

Building a Better Home for Your Family and Congregation

Temple Israel is the spiritual home for some 500 families. Happily, the celebrations and observations taking place at Temple Israel have overgrown the space available for us. And so, some time ago, the Board of Trustees of Temple Israel established The Fund for The Future, to raise funds for the expansion and renovation of our building, and to create an endowment to secure the future of our most important programs.

During the initial phase of this project our Nursery School was expanded and a second elevator was installed. Each of these initial projects addressed major needs of our active congregation.

The current phase of improvements involves significant upgrades to our infrastructure, renovations to our chapel, the redesign and modernization of our ballroom level, and installation of a stained glass window on the window wall behind our spiral staircase.

Many of the most obvious cosmetic alterations will be on the auditorium level, which will be designed to allow for both large social events and smaller functions. It will also create separate areas which will allow functions such as our Alzheimers' Day Care Program and our Early Childhood Music and Movement classes to be held simultaneously with book reviews or lectures.

While some of the infrastructure changes will not be immediately obvious, they will result in enhanced heating and air conditioning systems and other essential services. Because of the nature of our building's original design and construction, the renovation project is complicated, costly, and time-consuming. Nevertheless we have been able to complete our rehabilitation of the Chapel, anticipate that the infrastructure changes will be made before the end of 2003, and expect to open our renovated ballroom early in 2004.

We are also in the initial stages of redesigning and replacing the four-story window occupying the south wall of the building. The new window will enhance the appearance of the lobby, and increase the amount of light entering the building in the auditorium, chapel, lobby, and balcony areas.

Every aspect of this year's project will provide a stable, dependable foundation for any future work, and in the meantime enable all of our programs to run more effectively in the immediate future.

None of this work could have happened without the generosity of the members of this congregation. We thank you for supporting this project, and hope that you will be delighted with the initial results.

Now it is time to move forward with the remaining work to complete this vital project. This demands the involvement of each and every one of us. These changes to the building that houses Temple Israel of the City of New York are indicative of the major changes that have occurred in programming for leading active Reform Temples such as ours.

We were also able it work with our architects and engineers to further complete our design plans, and to engage our fundraising consultant to design and start Phase II of our campaign and to raise the final $4.5 million.

Your donations will make all these changes a reality and even more so. The important gift repeats a commitment and vitality of our Jewish heritage for all of our family and the generations to follow.