Sophie Sonnenfeld Photos
Rabbi Hyman, Rabbi Bistritzky, and members of the Rosenberg family at Sunday’s reopening.
Thirty people gathered in an Edgewood back yard Sunday to mark the reopening of a communal mikvah, which allows observant Jews to perform religious obligations.
The mikvah underwent renovations from November through March with final details added in the past few months in preparation for the reopening. Rabbi Fred Hyman of the Westville Synagogue and his wife Tova Emanuel Hyman have run the New Haven Mikvah Society for two years; they hosted a naming and rededication ceremony Sunday afternoon outside the newly renovated mikvah.
The renovated mikvah pool.
A mikvah is a ritual bath where married observant Jewish women immerse themselves in for ritual purification once a month at the end of their menstrual cycle and after childbirth. A mikvah bath is also used by men before holidays and both men and women in the process of converting to Judaism.
The New Haven Mikvah Society was formed in the 1930s on Day Street. The mikvah moved to its current location at 86 Hubinger St. back in the 1970s. Many Jews had left the Day Street area for Edgewood and Westville neighborhoods, and so the mikvah moved too. Since the move, the mikvah had once before been renovated, in the 1990s.
A leak in one of the two mikvah pools rendered the facility out of commission as it was no longer kosher. That prompted Rabbi Hyman to get in contact with an organization called Mikvah USA for renovations.
Mikvah USA was founded to help communities build and maintain mikvahs. According to their website, “The mission will only be complete when every Jew in North America will find it easy and appealing to adhere to the highest level of taharah (purity).”
Rabbi Hyman (pictured) said the mikvah would not have been able to continue without Mikvah USA’s help and contributions from their primary donor, the Rosenberg family. He said Sunday’s celebration was organized “not just to recognize the achievements of the reopening, but also to remember the hard work involved.”
One of the three preparation rooms called “the bridal room.”
Two of the New Haven Mikvah Society pools had leaks. The building now has one functional mikvah pool along with its three preparation rooms. The preparation rooms have toilets and showers for people to use before they enter the water.
The rain collection system.
The water for a mikvah must come from “living” sources such as springs, groundwater wells, or rain. The New Haven Mikvah Society uses a mix of rainwater and tap water. “The mikvah pool is allowed to be filled with some tap water as long as the rainwater is the main source” Rabbi Hyman said.
Along with the mikvah pool, the heating and rainwater filtration systems were renovated. This included redoing the basement collection tanks and installing new rain gutters on the roof. Tova Hyman said the rainwater filtration system is hard to maintain. “That’s why this renovation is such a big deal,” she said.
Keilim mikvah.
The mikvah also has a keilim mikvah bath which is used for dishes and utensils. Traditional Jewish law requires that dishes and utensils received or purchased from a non-Jew be immersed in the mikvah before use.
Tova Emanuel Hyman (left) and Reva Fleischman (center).
Reva Fleischman is one of six volunteers at the mikvah who each come in to help six or seven times a month. She said most mikvah visitors live in Westville area or near Yale. Although mikvot are dispersed throughout the state from Hartford to Fairfield, Tova Hyman said, even “people from Waterbury come here for some peace and privacy.”
New Haven’s Chabad/Lubavitch Chasidic community, centered on the other side of Whalley Avenue around Norton Parkway, has its own mikvah
The Hymans’ daughters Talya, Rebecca, and Raphaela, who helped to set up the event in the backyard.
During the renovations on the Hubinger Street mikvah this year, regular visitors went to local chabads for their mikvah baths. Fleischman estimated each day the mikvah welcomes a handful of visitors and about two to three conversions a month.
The mikvah is now named in honor of the late Shmual Duvid Singer. Singer was born in Hungary and lost his own father when he was only 1 year old. Members of the Rosenberg family spoke about their father’s experience in a forced labor camp while he had nothing except the coat on his back.
Their father lost his entire family, but was eventually able to build a new family with nine children. Rabbi Hyman said Singer was “devoted to increasing spiritual purity among the Jewish people.” Singer donated a “substantial” sum for the previous mikvah renovation, said son-in-law Abraham Rosenberg, who put up the money this time along with his wife Mindy.
Founder and President of Mikvah USA Rabbi Yitzchok Bistritzky called a mikvah “the greatest gift you can give to different women.” While the mikvah is primarily used for women, Rabbi Bistritzky acknowledged that in Hebrew the ritual “is not called the purification of a woman, or the purification of a man, but it is a mitzvah that brings purity to the entire family.”