by Sue Macy (Englewood, NJ)
This is a different sort of obituary, not for a person, but a place. The synagogue I grew up in, the Clifton Jewish Center of Clifton, N.J., held its last Shabbat services on December 21, 2024. The building is being repurposed to become a cheder for Orthodox girls. With the original members gone and their descendants moving away, the Center—the last Conservative shul in town—closed its doors.
It was founded in the late 1940s by nine young men who had gone to Clifton High School together. My parents joined the Center in the early 1950s. I went to Sunday School and Hebrew School there, and had my bat mitzvah. It was not just a place of worship, but of community. My mom joined Hadassah through the Center. My dad was on the temple board.
We had the same rabbi, Dr. Eugene Markovitz, for 52 of the Center’s 75 years. He was an Orthodox rabbi in a Conservative shul, which meant women didn’t have aliyot while he was in charge. It forever irked my feminist soul, but the rabbi had more depth than my younger self gave him credit for. In 1988, Rabbi Markovitz intervened when four local boys painted anti-Semitic graffiti on the temple building. Instead of allowing them to be sent to juvenile detention, he convinced the judge to sentence them to 25 hours of education about Judaism, with him, and 30 hours of helping around the synagogue. CBS made a “Schoolbreak Special” about the incident. Hal Linden played the rabbi.
Although I moved out of Clifton decades ago, I continued to attend High Holiday services with my family. After my dad died, my mom and brother and I went. After my mom died, my brother and I just kept going. But as the congregation shrank, the signs of decline were unmistakable. We no longer had a cantor. Israel Bonds luminaries stopped coming to give High Holiday presentations, hoping for lucrative investments. Eventually, we had no more bond drives at all. There was a time when the temple had to put hundreds of chairs in the adjacent ballroom to fit all those coming for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services. Lately, the ballroom remained empty and unused.
I know that times change. I write books about history and intellectually I can place the geographic movements of the Jewish people in historical context. With affluence, many of the Jewish families in Clifton moved to wealthier suburbs. Still, it’s hard not to feel a personal loss with the closing of the Center. It makes accessing the feelings and experiences from my past that much harder. It also raises questions about my Jewish identity that until now, I haven’t had to answer. What kind of synagogue do I want to join? Where do I go from here?
Ironically, the last services at the Center attracted the largest Shabbat crowd in years. People like me, whose parents lived their lives in the community, came from near and far to be there one more time. It was a fitting tribute to a place that truly had been the Center of our lives.
Sue Macy is the author of 18 books for children and young adults including The Book Rescuer: How a Mensch From Massachusetts Saved Yiddish Literature for Generations to Come, winner of the Sydney Taylor Picture Book Award. She lives in Englewood, New Jersey, and can be found on Instagram @suemacy1 or through her website, suemacy.com.
The Jewish Writing Project 
I grew up in Passaic, a N. J town surrounded by Clifton. I’m from her parents’ generation and have lived the better part of my life in Massachusetts, where I went to college and met and married my husband of 66 years. I no longer visit the area, other than (very) occasional trips to the cemetery, in Clifton, to visit the graves of my dad and sister. Mom is buried in Mass. Where I brought her when she became ill. Sue’s story resonated with me on many levels.
As the former president of a Conservative synagogue (Temple Sholom, Bridgewater, NJ) I remember the murmured background worry of the congregation leadership: membership growth or lack of it, and the ensuing financial viability and spirited “ruach” of the “kehillah”. Like a human, a congregation ages, impoverishes, and then dies, in certain suburbs and even certain urban neighborhoods. Those who remain move on, but take the memories along. What happens to the memorial lights to our loved ones and the plaques commemorating our ties to prior generations? But those are physical manifestations of generational respect and the “mitzvot” we perform. Even though I moved away, I remain an associate member of my schul, I just can’t cut the ties yet. Thank you for sharing your story, Sue, writing/publishing is how we pass on the love and “kavod”.
Sue, your story so specific, so very personal… and also familiar. With names and places changed it is about Beth Emeth Congregation, the synagogue in NE Philly where I grew up.
Thank you for writing about the Clifton Jewish Center. I grew up a block away, went to Hebrew School there, had my Bar Mitzvah, was a member of AZA there, and even worked for the CJC when I was in high school, as a bus monitor, making sure that Hebrew School students didn’t kill each other and the driver on their way home. I was last there in 2019, still saying kaddish for my mother on the morning of her unveiling. My parents were board officers, my mother also the Sisterhood president. Hard to believe it is no more.