History Of The Woodside Synagogue Ahavas Torah
Part One
In the early 1960s, newly minted government jobs drew young Orthodox Jewish professionals to the Washington, D.C. area, specifically to the Summit Hill apartment complex.
Several miles from the established shuls in Washington, the young newcomers walked down 16th Street every Friday night and Shabbos to Ohev and Beth Shalom. But as the small community grew, the long walk through muggy or snowy weather seemed harder and harder, and 15 families decided it was time to set up a shul among the apartments.
At the time, Summit Hill's party room, which sat above a row of stores, was a hot spot for residents' sweet-sixteen parties. But noisy parties brought complaints from nearby Suburban Towers, and so the Summit Hill management closed the party room --until the summer of 1963, when 15 families approached them to ask if the party room could become a shul. Relieved to be rid of wild parties and tenant demands, the management agreed and set the rent at just one dollar a year.
The families, which include present-day members Jacques and Suzanne Amsellem, Leon and Eileen Cytryn and Avrom and Sarah Landesman, quickly set to work turning a party room into a shul. They painted the room and built a mechitza, complete with curtains sewn by the residents.
In August 1963, Avrom Landesman was inaugurated as the first president of the Summit Hill Shul. It quickly took off as young couples from surrounding apartment complexes began to join. The shul was completely self-run, not one paid employee. Congregants read the Torah, served as Baaleh T'filah, and taught classes. They also quickly established a hospitality committee to welcome guests to the area. An annual Simchat Torah Kiddish was established, as well as an annual Purim Shpiel.
Shul dues were $25 a year in those days, and for that money, congregants joined in a variety of activities. In the beginning, after Shabbos morning services, families gathered for a simple Kiddish of coffee and cake, followed by a half-hour Chumash shiur . As the shul grew, so did the Kiddish. First whiskey appeared, then bottled herring, then fresh herring. Eventually, potato kugel became regular Kiddish fare and even an occasional cholent. People attended shul more and more regularly and the shul's membership swelled. 1966 brought the mini-shiur, delivered after Kiddish by a different member each week.
As the Vietnam War escalated, a new influx of doctors and other professionals came to Summit Hill to serve the government. By the late 1960s, the membership ballooned to about 150 families.
In the meantime, congregants were busy building up the community around them. Shul members started a nursery school in 1964 and helped open the Yeshiva High School. After the 1968 riots made it dangerous to reach the mikvah in downtown Washington, members of the shul were instrumental in moving the mikvah to Silver Spring. The shul board advanced $14,000 of pledged dues to finance the mikvah's construction on Georgia Avenue, and congregants served as the mikvah's first officers.
By 1970, many Summit Hill families had outgrown their apartments. Some moved to Kemp Mill or out of town, but the Summit Hill Shul remained. Other members moved to nearby Woodside and continued to walk to Summit Hill every Shabbos. Eventually, as more members moved to Woodside, the Landesman basement began serving as an auxiliary Woodside minyan for Friday nights and Shabbos mincha.