By LORETTA TACKETT

Editor

The struggle to keep Judaism alive in Williamson will be over tomorrow for those belonging to the B'nai Israel Congregation in the College Hill Temple. The small Jewish community opted to close the 91-year-old synagogue due to a dwindling congregation and will travel to Huntington, Charleston or Lexington, Ky., for services in the future.

"It breaks my heart," said 69-year-old Heddy Hess, who has been attending the Williamson synagogue located on College Hill for 50-plus years. "But we have no alternative."

"We are a dwindling population. We are only four families." said Yossi Hayon, a business owner who came to Williamson about 20 years ago.

Born in Israel, Hayon came to the United States in 1988 and says he "just tasted" the rich history of Judaism in Appalachia and if no other couple has a child, his Evan is the youngest Jew in the area at 14.

"Who am I to belong to the generation to shut down the temple?" Hayon proposed. "I feel like my right hand is being cut off. It is that painful."

Yossi and Evan Hayon, Heddy Hess and daughter Debbie Hess (mother of Evan Hayon), and Heddy Hess' other three children, and Don Zappan are nearly all the Jews left in Williamson, and have been since about 1991, Hayon said. Out-of-town visitors who came to the temple regularly are Ed Island and son Pete Island from Logan, and John and Jean Rosenberg of Prestonsburg, Ky. The B'nai Israel Temple crew decided after a meeting one evening, Heddy Hess said, there were not enough of them to continue to maintain the temple.

Therefore, the Jewish community is calling for community members to join them Sunday, May 3, at 3 p.m., for the last service at the temple. The Huntington congregation is conducting the service and bringing Rabbi Woocher and their choir, Hess said.

"This is a milestone in the history of this region," Hayon said about the temple's closing, asserting people would have one last chance to attend service at the synagogue, built by a group which organized in 1916.

The group became affiliated with the Reform Movement in 1922, and completed the temple in the fall of 1927, dedicating it in 1928.

The last service at the temple, located by the old Williamson Memorial Hospital, will be Sunday, May 3, 2009 at 3 p.m.

Editor's Note: A more thorough article about the Jewish people who settled in Williamson, including their businesses and what happened to them, will appear in the Tuesday edition of the Williamson Daily. The article will also elaborate on what the B'nai Israel Congregation will do with the scrolls and windows from the temple.