Celebrating 70 years
Seven decades in Houston, and counting
Thirty seven families started this congregation in 1957 with a name, a set of bylaws, and a borrowed room. We are marking our seventieth year with special services, congregational storytelling, and a celebration open to anyone who wants to come.
1957
It started with thirty seven families and a power cut
The founding story is worth telling properly, because seventy years later the congregation still runs on the thing those families wanted.
In 1957, thirty seven families left two larger Reform congregations to start something smaller. They moved quickly. Within two weeks of that first meeting they had chosen a name, written bylaws, and were ready to hold a service.
The first service was held at St. John’s Church, which had offered them the room. Partway through, the power failed. Nobody left. They lit candles and finished the service by candlelight, which is the sort of detail a congregation remembers, and HCRJ has: when the fiftieth anniversary came around in 2007, the candles came back out.
What those families wanted was specific. They believed in the principles of classical Reform Judaism. They wanted worship that was simple and meaningful and that emphasized English, so that everyone in the room could understand the liturgy. They wanted every member to have an equal voice in the direction of the congregation. And they wanted it small enough that people would actually come to know each other.
They meant the last part seriously enough to write a ceiling into the original bylaws: a cap of three hundred families. Not a target. A limit.
Born of the idea that Judaism is a religion that should be practiced in harmony with the dictates of our hearts, an intimate, inviting, and inspirational congregation where fellowship may flourish.
From the founding statement, still on the wall and still trueSeventy years
The road from a borrowed room to here
The congregation is founded
Thirty seven families, two weeks from first meeting to first service, and a name, a set of bylaws and a service by candlelight at St. John’s Church.
The first building on Bering Drive
One multi use structure that served as the religious school, the reception hall and the sanctuary, which is a fair description of how much room the congregation had and how much it did with it.
A sanctuary of our own
After twenty years in the multi purpose room, a new sanctuary was built and dedicated in December 1982. It is the room we still worship in.
Rabbi Steve Gross arrives
Nine years after his ordination, Rabbi Gross came to HCRJ, and has led the congregation, and much of Houston’s interfaith work, ever since.
Fifty years
Marked with the candles lit again, in memory of the night the power went out and nobody went home.
Our seventieth year
Still on Bering Drive. Still intimate, inviting and inspirational. Still a congregation where every member has a vote and the rabbi knows your name.
This year
How we are marking it
The anniversary runs across the whole year rather than landing on a single evening. Everything below is open to the community, not only to members.
Worship
Anniversary Shabbat servicesSpecial services through the year that look back at where the congregation has been and forward at where it is going.
Storytelling
Congregational storytellingMembers telling the stories of this place: the founding families, the building, the rabbis, the weddings, the years nobody talks about.
Celebration
A celebration open to everyoneNot a members only evening. If HCRJ has been part of your life at any point in seventy years, you are invited.
Dates are on the calendar
Anniversary events are listed alongside everything else HCRJ does, so there is one place to look and nothing goes stale in a separate list.
Share your story
Seventy years is a lot of people
If you were married here, named here, called to the Torah here, taught here, or simply spent a decade of Friday nights in the same seat, we would like to hear about it. So would everyone else.
Photographs are especially welcome, and the older and blurrier the better. The survey that started this redesign was blunt about our photographs being out of date, and the anniversary is a good excuse to fix that in both directions at once.
Write to the office, or bring what you have to a Friday service and hand it to someone.
Give in honor of seventy years
Two ways to mark the anniversary that outlast it
Now
Make a gift to HCRJA gift in honor of the anniversary supports the school, the building, the programs and the people who run them. Any size makes a real difference.
DonateLater
The L’Dor VaDor Legacy LeagueOur legacy giving program, for members who include HCRJ in their will. Named for l’dor vador, from generation to generation, which is the whole point of an anniversary.
Ask about a bequestAbout the L’Dor VaDor Legacy League
We are at a moment in our history as a congregation which calls upon us to preserve and strengthen what past generations built for us to enjoy. Like those who stood here before us, it is our turn to make sure our children and grandchildren inherit the same commitment to Judaism and its ethical values. For information, contact Julie Barry at jbarry@moodylawgroup.com.
Be part of the next seventy years.
Thirty seven families in a borrowed room got us this far. The congregation is still small enough that one more household changes it.