The Farmington Valley Jewish Congregation/Emek Shalom.

SIMSBURY – The first synagogue in this town was founded in a living room on a snowy Saturday night in 1956, with a phone book and two young couples.
This year, the Farmington Valley Jewish Community-Emek Shalom (FVJC) celebrates its 50th anniversary, as well as a milestone for its rabbi, Howard S. Herman.
“The Farmington Valley Jewish Congregation-Emek Shalom has been my home away from home for the past 30 years,” says Herman. “As the rabbi there, I have had a unique opportunity to become part of peoples’ lives in many different ways. The individuals who make up the census of the congregation are known to me and share their lives with me in innumerable ways. We are, in essence, one very large family, a woven tapestry of sorts, each individual making that family special in their own unique way. But the one thing that unites all of us is the heritage we share and the realization that Jewish families can be part of a diverse community that strives for the same worthy goals. The Jewish community of the Farmington Valley Jewish Congregation celebrates not only the richness of our heritage but also fostering a spirit of faith, charity, cooperation and learning in the uniquely beautiful setting of the Farmington River Valley.”

(Left to right) FVJC’s Cantor Susan Levine, 50th anniversary chair Nancy Brownstein, and Rabbi Howard Herman.

While the congregation has been celebrating since last September, its gala weekend is planned for Apr. 29-May 1. A Friday-night service will mark both the temple’s 50th anniversary and Rabbi Herman’s 30th anniversary, and will feature Rabbi Daniel Freelander, senior vice president of the Union for Reform Judaism. A Saturday night dinner dance at Tower Ridge Country Club will honor FVJC’s first and only cantor, Susan Levine, who has served the congregation for 32 years. On Sunday, religious school students will make special presentations and the entire congregation will enjoy Magevet, the a capella Jewish singing group from Yale.
Congregant Nancy Brownstein chairs the 50th anniversary planning committee. A native of Riverdale in the Bronx, N.Y., she says she was intrigued by “this little congregation in the woods” when she relocated to Simsbury in the mid-’90s to raise a family. As her three children went through FVJC’s religious school and became bnei-mitzvah, Brownstein, who had not celebrated her own bat mitzvah as a child, decided to join her kids in their journey. In 2004, she became an adult bat mitzvah.
In her weekly meetings with Rabbi Herman, Brownstein studied more than her Torah portion: she learned the temple’s history. “At that point, I did the math and told the rabbi, ‘You’re coming up on 50 years; I’d like to gather some of the history for the occasion,'” she says. “The ‘gathering’ has gone by the wayside, and planning a 50th anniversary year took over my life.”
Back to the living room on the snowy night. Doris and Sid Cohen were having dinner at the home of Mim and Joe Asbel. “We started to talk and one of the men said, ‘I wonder how many Jewish families are in this area,'” Doris Cohen recalls. The four decided to identify Jewish-sounding surnames in the local phone book. But they had to first decide why they were calling.
One of the men contacted a Jewish friend who worked at Ensign-Bickford, a Simsbury-based company known for its community involvement. The Cohens and Asbels were offered meeting space on the first Saturday evening of the month, in the Toy Building on the corporate campus, and they set to work with the phone book. “We made some mistakes,” Doris says, but nearly 50 adults showed up for coffee and donuts at the first get-together.
The group continued to meet for about a decade, growing to 50 families. In 1967, Ensign-Bickford donated the four acres of land that would house a permanent synagogue building. The Farmington Valley Jewish Community-Emek Shalom opened its doors in 1971, with 71 member families. Six years later, Ensign-Bickford donated land for a congregational cemetery on Mountainview Avenue in Avon.
Now FVJC boasts 330 families.

Rabbi Howard Herman.

“Thirty years has gone by for me like the blink of an eye,” says Rabbi Herman. “We have gotten bigger, stronger, more active and involved, and we have given our children a springboard to jump into their Jewish lives as secure, proud, and knowledgeable men and women. I have had the unique chance to take entire families through the Jewish lifecycle and then begin again with the next generation of that family. This continuity is what we strive for. It gives us our identity, our challenge and our drive. We put Torah into action and we have sought to make active Judaism the essence of every member’s life.”
For more information about the 50th Anniversary Gala Weekend: www.fvjc.org / (860) 658-1075.