Hesh

Rogue Particles 2014

Harold Levin gave himself a nickname on the day he opened the Ultimate Spiritual Shoreline Synagogue.” Call me Hesh,” he said.

This beach community outside of New Haven, where Jews used to summer, had a small building, once a “Summer Synagogue” which he was able to get rent free for fixing it up, replacing the faulty wiring and take it from the catastrophe it was to the ultimate new synagogue.

With a group of dissatisfied and unaffiliated Jews he had transformed this eyesore into a beautiful blue and gold building

“We have our own way of doing things. All religious services will begin Friday at 6 and finish by 6:30, in time for a movie or dinner. Either English or Hebrew is acceptable.”

“Pepperoni pizza is okay. IPads instead of prayer books. “Ultimate Spiritual Shoreline Synagogue will be the new model to keep pace with the new Jew.”

The other Rabbis in the area called it the Shoreline Ultimate Church until so many of their congregants left to join and soon Hesh was living in a beachfront house and expanding the USSS.

With success came recognition and then came press and one day the police came and arrested Hesh who was really Father Flynn from the mid-west who had drained the coffers of his church and fled to Connecticut.

The disillusioned and  leaderless Jews trickled back to their old synagogues and the USSS again turned into disrepair and emptiness waiting for the next messianic hustler to come down the pike.