In a small town in Illinois, a nearly century-old Torah ark—a special cabinet designed to hold Torah scrolls—had been sitting in storage for more than two decades.

Some 2,000 miles away, Chabad-Lubavitch of Newbury Park in Thousand Oaks, Calif., had an active synagogue with weekly Shabbat services, but was using a converted armoire to house its Torah scrolls.

It took a series of chance connections, perseverance and a bit of grit to get the historic ark from the Corn Belt to its new home in Southern California, according to Rabbi Schneur Schneerson, co-director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Newbury Park with his wife, Tzippy. This past Sunday, some 100 supporters turned out to celebrate the ark—fully restored to its former glory—and its official dedication in Chabad-Lubavitch of Newbury Park’s synagogue.

RELATED

The Holy Ark, or aron kodesh in Hebrew, had been the centerpiece of Congregation Knesset Anshe Israel of Danville, Ill., for 70 years. Founded by Russian Jewish immigrants in the mid-1910s, the synagogue was a mainstay of Jewish life in Danville, just two miles from the Indiana border.

Thelma Lager, daughter of the ark's builder—cabinetmaker Nathan Lager—speaking at the Sept. 14 event. (Photo: Barry Maultasch)

Danville’s Jewish community had always been small, counting some 200 Jews at its height in the 1930s, says Sybil Mervis, a longtime resident and local historian. Typical of small-town Jewish communities, Knesset Anshe Israel’s membership dwindled in recent years as families moved away from the area. In 1991, the congregation moved from its original location, which necessitated putting many of the synagogue’s original fixtures into storage, including the Torah ark. And in 2012, with just 17 members remaining, Knesset Anshe Israel closed its doors for good.

Mervis, a member of Knesset Anshe Israel for some 50 years, was tasked with figuring out what to do with the synagogue’s possessions, including the ark. She had previously compiled a history of Danville’s Jewish community, and so began researching the ark’s provenance in hopes of finding leads for a new home. She discovered that the ark had been built in the mid-1920s by Nathan Lager, a Russian immigrant and skilled cabinetmaker who ran a woodworking factory in Danville.

Through relatives, Mervis was able to get in touch with Lager’s daughter, Thelma Lager, of Monterey Park, Calif. Lager, 95, had spent her childhood in Danville, and remembered attending Knesset Anshe Israel with her father and mother, Rose. But she had no idea that her father had built the synagogue’s stunning, Art Deco-style Torah ark.

Lager says she doesn’t know why her father never mentioned that he’d built the ark. But she recognized his handiwork in the photographs Mervis sent her.

From left: Sybil Mervis, Thelma Lager, Louis Mervis and Shari Azoff, a cousin of the Lager family. Sybil, a historian in Danville, Ill., undertook the search for the ark's new home; she attended the dedication with her husband, Louis. (Photo: Barry Maultasch)

“My dad had a reverence for wood, and he knew a great deal about it. He would have selected the panels very carefully,” she says.

Lager agreed to help Mervis search for a place for the ark. They contacted synagogues and museums in Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities, but none of the institutions were able to accommodate it.

Lager, who still runs her own advertising firm, happened to mention the dilemma to a friend and colleague, Leo Pearlstein. He, in turn, had a friend who attended Chabad of Newbury Park, and suggested that they might be interested in acquiring the ark. Mervis and Rabbi Schneerson got in touch, and it was determined that the ark would make its way to California.