Former Kingsbridge synagogue members work to return 320 memorial plaques to families

More than 70 years ago, Fred Smith and Richard Baum were playing outside during the High Holidays and celebrating their bar mitzvahs at what used to be the Kingsbridge Center of Israel at 3115 Corlear Ave. As a new bilingual Christian church now settles into the building, Smith and Baum have returned to their childhood synagogue in hopes of returning the more than 300 memorial plaques housed inside to family members.

Smith and Baum are coordinating with Salanter Akiba Riverdale’s Rabbi Bini Krauss, who said he is working with a local synagogue on finding a place to store the plaques while relatives are located.

The Kingsbridge Center of Israel closed several years ago, and Grace Tabernacle bought the building in May. Smith stopped by while construction was underway, remembering his own family’s plaques were on the sanctuary wall. The idea took shape, and he got Baum on board. For the past few weeks, Smith, 83, clad in a headlamp, and Baum, 82, have stood balanced on pews with screwdrivers in hand, meticulously removing the plaques and boxing them up.

“Very steady work for a couple of retired guys,” Smith said.

Smith previously worked as a data analyst for the city’s public school system and was a statistician for the New York Jets. Baum, who now lives in Manhattan, worked for the Pentagon keeping track of Army training requirements. Baum said there is a group of about 15 people that grew up in the neighborhood and attended the synagogue who still try to get together a few times a year.

Grace Tabernacle pastor Kerlin Calderon agreed to the plan, saying he thought of his own childhood church and objects there that he had fond memories attached to. It feels special, Calderon said, to honor the history that preceded the church, and to continue the legacy of something so meaningful to the community. Others who used to be part of the congregation have returned to the building just as Smith did, he said.

The sanctuary is dimly lit, crowded with cardboard boxes and miscellaneous storage items from both the church and the synagogue. The sound of plaques clanking and screws bouncing off the floor echoed throughout while Smith and Baum worked.

The pair has counted 320 plaques, and put the names and information into an Excel spreadsheet to share with community members. Baum is interested in family history, he said, and volunteers with the Jewish Genealogical Society, an organization that documents and preserves Jewish history.

The plaques are made out of brown metal, with gold writing that has a former congregation member’s name in English and Hebrew, as well as their date of death in English and Hebrew. Small bulbs to the sides of the plaques cast a soft orange glow against the metal, which were turned on each year on the person’s death anniversary and accompanied by a prayer.

The dates range from 1899 to the 1970s, the men said. They’ve found one from 2020, but haven’t discovered anything else from the last 50 years. Other older plaques are missing too, they said.

Baum said he can’t find his father’s plaque, and another former congregation member, Gary Dombroff, said he hasn’t seen his parents’ either. Dombroff now lives in Brooklyn and heard word of Smith and Baum’s project from a mutual friend.

Dombroff said the plaques were in a separate, smaller room, but Smith and Baum said they haven’t seen any others. He noted other parts of the sanctuary that also hold meaning, such as a large stained glass piece near the entryway honoring those lost in the Holocaust.

The plaques aren’t holy objects, Dombroff said, but a reminder of cultural practices and a way to memorialize loved ones, ensuring their names aren’t forgotten. It’s a “permanence beyond a grave marker,” he said.