The Birmingham Temple, officially the Congregation for Humanistic Judaism of Metro Detroit, is a

Humanistic Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humanism" ha ...

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

congregation and

synagogue A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It is a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as wed ...

, located at 8611 West Twelve Mile Road, Farmington Hills, a

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

, in the United States. The synagogue was founded in 1963 as the Birmingham Temple in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

, a suburb of Detroit.

History

The Congregation for Humanistic Judaism of Metro Detroit was founded in 1963 by

Rabbi A rabbi (; ) is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as ''semikha''—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of t ...

Sherwin Wine Sherwin Theodore Wine (Hebrew name שמעון בן צבי, Shimon ben Tzvi; January 25, 1928 – July 21, 2007) was an American rabbi and a founding figure of Humanistic Judaism, a movement that emphasizes Jewish culture and Jewish history ...

(formerly an assistant rabbi at Temple Beth El) and eight founding families, who originally intended that the congregation would be located in Birmingham. The temple originally followed many

Reform Reform refers to the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The modern usage of the word emerged in the late 18th century and is believed to have originated from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement, which ...

practices but within six months decided to drop most of these (as well as all mentions of God in the services), and began to pursue a humanist philosophy.Excerpt available
at

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

.Excerpt available
at

. The congregation's first services were at Eagle Elementary School, and then at Highmeadow School, in Farmington; later services moved to the Masonic Temple, Birmingham Unitarian Church, and from 1965 to 1971 were held at Frost Middle School in

Livonia Livonia, known in earlier records as Livland, is a historical region on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. It is named after the Livonians, who lived on the shores of present-day Latvia. By the end of the 13th century, the name was extende ...

. Finally, in 1971, the temple moved to its current location on Twelve Mile Road in Farmington Hills. The temple began publishing the journal ''Humanistic Judaism'' in 1967. According to Sydney Bolkosky, the temple "sought to define a primarily secular Jewish identity" and "steered a clearly liberal political and humanistic moral course." In 2003, Tamara Kolton was appointed as senior rabbi of the congregation. Sherwin Wine died in an automobile accident in 2007. In 2013, Jeffrey Falick became the new rabbi of the congregation.

References

External links

* 1963 establishments in Michigan 20th-century synagogues in the United States Farmington Hills, Michigan Humanistic synagogues in the United States Jewish organizations established in 1963 Synagogues completed in 1971 Synagogues in Michigan Society for Humanistic Judaism {{US-synagogue-stub