In October 1987, the Oheb Zedeck Synagogue in Pottsville became the headquarters for the Jewish Museum of Eastern Pennsylvania.
Its holdings included paintings, sculpture and tapestries.
In 2014, the synagogue’s leaders decided to close the museum, challenged by a dwindling population and time and tide. Since then, synagogue representatives like Delores Delin, Orwigsburg, have been returning items on loan in the museum to their rightful owners.
“It hasn’t been functioning because there hasn’t been any people to run it. I’m really the only one in charge of it right now. So we’re slowly giving back the items which people put here on permanent loan. You can see the empty shelves here. Just this past week a family came and collected about 50 or 60 items that they donated to the museum,” Delin, chairwoman of the museum, said Friday.
She thought there might be about 100 items left there. They include an Italian charity box made of metal.
“Do you know what the meaning of that is? What is says here is ‘Charity Shall Avert Death.’ And what that means is if you give to charity you have a good name and your name lives on forever,” Delin said.
Also, there was The Sefer Torah, number 1205, which is “one of the 1,564 Czech Memorial Sifre Torah which constituted part of the treasurers looted by the Nazis during the 1939-1945 war,” according to a description framed nearby it.
Delin was not sure how long it would take to return all of the items that were on permanent loan.
Meanwhile, in late 2015, Delin donated a collection of videos to the Schuylkill County Historical Society, 305 N. Centre St.
“It was a big collection of videotaped interviews from members of the Jewish community,” Thomas Drogalis, the historical society’s executive director, said Friday.
The Oheb Zedeck Synagogue is the county’s oldest Jewish congregation.
In October 1856, 10 people began holding services in members’ homes. Three years later, the former Thompson Hall was rented for $300 a year.
By 1861, the congregation had grown to 20 families and in 1870, the group bought ground on Arch Street, near Third Street, for $7,000. In 1866, the congregation bought a two-room frame building from the Evangelical Association and moved there.
In 1913, a new house of worship was built for $25,000 on West Arch Street and the synagogue at 23rd and Mahantongo streets was built in 1960.
In 2008, the Oheb Zedeck Synagogue Center bought a two-building complex at 2400 West End Ave., Pottsville, and moved the synagogue and museum there.
“Now, we have about 50 members,” Delin said.
While the museum was closed in 2014, Delin said if someone from the public wants to view the remains of the collection they can call the synagogue’s office at 570-622-5890.