Without a space to call their own, members of the Bar Yohai Sephardic Minyan in Sunnyvale have worshipped during the High Holy Days in a school multipurpose room.
Now, with the official opening of a new building and 225-seat sanctuary Sept. 1, that won’t be necessary.
“The building is beautifully done,” said David LeVine, who helped propel the project on the South Peninsula Hebrew Day School campus. “The original idea 15 years ago was to create a big room for prayer and education. The building is so much more than that.”
Bar Yohai will celebrate the new synagogue with an event beginning at 5:15 p.m. Aug. 29 at 1030 Astoria Drive in Sunnyvale. On the schedule are music, food and children’s programs, in addition to remarks from Jonathan Novich, SPHDS president, interim headmaster David Kulka and Bar Yohai Rabbi Zecharia Sionit.
Following the event, participants — around 400 are expected — will have the chance to pray for the first time under the gold-trimmed, brown and beige dome of the sanctuary. A muted color scheme was designed to help congregants achieve a contemplative state.
The new building cost approximately $1.3 million, said LeVine, SPHDS capital campaign chair. The committee is still looking to raise another $300,000.
Located on the five-acre campus, Bar Yohai Sephardic Minyan has been serving the Jewish community in Sunnyvale and the surrounding area for more than 20 years. The congregation, with 60-plus families, offers daily and Shabbat prayers and a range of classes.
The new, 5,700-square-foot facility, which will house the congregation and serve as an educational wing to SPHDS, features a large, traditional Sephardic domed sanctuary, classrooms and a rabbi’s study.
It also has a keylim mikvah, a ritual pool designed for spiritual purification of cooking and eating utensils.
LeVine, whose two daughters graduated from SPHDS, said the design feels spacious, with the main sanctuary acting as the focal point.
Inside, worshippers will be split by a mechitzah (the curtain or divider separating the sexes), with designated seating for men in front and women in back.
A second sanctuary with its own ark, plus a classroom, office space and a large, open hallway, round out the space.
“Everything is freshly painted and designed with green in mind,” LeVine said, noting that lights are on sensors or timers and there is an abundance of natural light. “It’s been done right.”
Use of the main sanctuary will be shared by Bar Yohai congregants who attend daily services and SPHDS middle-school students. Also, the students’ Judaic studies classes will be offered in the small sanctuary and new building’s classroom.
On the High Holy Days, LeVine said, congregants will finally have a sanctuary to pray in. In the past, Kol Nidre services — which LeVine said bring nearly 200 people — as well as Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were held in the school’s multipurpose hall.
The minyan has come a long way since Jean-Pierre Braun and Eric Benhamou decided to set up a small prayer group at SPHDS, which secured its site from the Cupertino School District in 1981.
Braun, former president and CEO of Escalade Corporation in Santa Clara, and Israeli-born Benhamou, chairman and CEO of Benhamou Global Ventures, attended the same synagogue as teenagers in Grenoble, France. They wanted to bring those Sephardic traditions to the South Bay.
To recruit prospective members, Braun turned to the Sunnyvale phone book and began calling people with Sephardic surnames. What resulted was a diverse group of Jews from Iran, Yemen, Morocco, Israel and elsewhere who were living in the South Bay, most working in high-tech jobs in the late 1980s.
In 1994, SPHDS formed a committee to raise funds for a library and synagogue. After several starts and stops, a master plan and budget were completed, calling for a new synagogue and renovation of some buildings on campus. Construction of the first of three phases began in June 2008.
“[The new building] is a positive result of the growth of the Jewish and Israeli population on the Peninsula,” LeVine said. “People are coming here and staying here. We’ve become a strong part of the Jewish community.”