Barton marks 10th year as emeritus administrator

By ALAN SMASON

Herbert Barton remembers the day full well when he ventured into Temple Sinai for the first time. He had come to marry his first wife Vera (née Levy) and the wedding was being celebrated in the Reform temple on St. Charles Avenue. “I still maintained my membership at Beth Israel,” he admitted recently. He kept that membership for an additional three or four years until he made a clean break with his former shul.

Herbert Barton, 90, at his emeritus director desk at Temple Sinai. (Photo by Alan Smason)

Barton had been raised an Orthodox Jew and was not acquainted with Reform Jewry, despite the fact that Levy’s father was a major temple leader. “Julian Feibelman was the rabbi then,” he recalled. “He was here every day. The rabbi did everything. He did services. He belonged to the American Council of Judaism (ACJ).” The ACJ was opposed to Zionism and advocated that rabbis not wear yarmulkas (skull caps) or tallit (prayer shawls). “Rabbi Feibelman was well-liked and well-respected in the whole community,” Barton continued. “He won the Times-Picayune Loving Cup award.”

Barton, whose father had the Rex Hat stores, found the business foundering in the early 1960s. He was trying his luck as an insurance salesman for Mutual of New York when he was approached by Harry Blumenthal in January about taking over the Temple Sinai executive director position in March of 1963. At the time he began his career, his father-in-law was the temple president, so he garnered much-needed support early on. Obviously, he has excelled at his job. He has enjoyed a career that has stretched out over a 50-year period, the last ten of which he served in an emeritus capacity.

“When I first came here,  I wasn’t just executive director,” he confessed. “I was in charge of the religious school and I was in charge of the youth group.” Barton later served as executive director of the Southern Federation of Temple Youth (SOFTY) and helped to lure and keep Macy Hart as camp director for the camp and land that has grown int the Southern Institute of Jewish Life.

One of his early assignments was to work on the building of a regional Jewish camp for the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas and western Tennessee. One of the key personnel was Henry S. Jacobs, the gentleman for whom the present camp in Utica, MS was named. “Henry had been instrumental in the youth movement,” Barton explained. “It was decided -because of his interest- we would name the camp after him.”

Years later Barton was instrumental in purchasing all of the original equipment that went into the SOFTY camp including the outfitting of the cabins and all of the kitchen equipment used on site there. He also served as a member of the executive board of the National Association of Temple Administrators. “I was just a member to the board,” he admitted. “I didn’t want an office.”

Through the half century of his work at Temple Sinai, he has overseen long-held traditions as well as much progress and change. He has chaired or overseen many different endowment campaigns and has purchased a number of adjacent properties to the synagogue’s physical plant in order to facilitate expansion. The sanctuary was remodeled, the auditorium was refurbished as was the chapel.  A place for the choir to be housed was built behind the pulpit and more recently the administrative suite of offices was expanded and named in his honor as was the bride’s room.

Currently, an improvement campaign is underway to make improvements to the Herbert Barton Administrative Suite.

“We had confirmations, but no Bar Mitzvahs in those days,” Barton reminisced. “I was the first one to teach Bar Mitzvah lessons here. We didn’t have any Bat Mitzvahs.”

Following the tenure of Feibelman came Rabbi Murray Blackman. “Rabbi Blackman was also from the old line of Reform (Judaism). I don’t believe he wore a yarmulka or wore a tallis.” Slowly but surely change came to Temple Sinai, but the most far reaching occurred during the recent tenure of Rabbi Ed Paul Cohn, who followed Blackman, he said.

“It was during Rabbi Cohn’s term that we started on the High Holidays, for example, of chanting the Haftorah,” Barton related. He pointed out that oftentimes he has been called upon to chant the Haftorahs and is able to do so because of his Orthodox background. Bar and Bat Mitzvahs now occur regularly, he said.

Also, he has seen the rise of women in positions of power at the Reform temple.  “There have been 25 presidents I served under and three of them have been women: Sandy Levy, Betty Zivitz and Anne Zivitz Kimball,” he boasted.

Following the passing of his first wife, he remarried his curent wife Sue.

When Barton reached his 40th anniversary a decade ago, he figured it was time to turn the helm over to another figure and suspected he might not be as involved as he had been. Although he is not directly responsible for the day-to-day administration, he still finds plenty of things to occupy his time and makes his way to the temple at least two or three times a week as an emeritus executive director, sharing office space with several others.

Barton has also maintained his position of executive secretary for the Reform cemeteries owned jointly by Temple Sinai and Touro Synagogue. These properites include the Dispersed of Judah Cemetery on Canal Street and Hebrew Rest Cemeteries 1-3 on Elysian Fields and Frenchmen Streets in Gentilly. “We’re in the process of expanding Number Three,” he said.

Having just celebrated his 90th birthday, Barton is still going strong and he looks at pride to all he has accomplished in his term of office at Sinai. “Gates of Prayer is a little more Jewish. Touro is maybe a little more than we are and we’re less,” he stated. “But our members are satisfied and we’re still the largest you know…the largest in the state!”