Birmingham Temple

01 / The story of this place

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Rabbi Sherwin Wine and eight founding families started the Birmingham Temple in 1963 as a small Reform congregation in the Detroit suburb of Birmingham. Within months, Wine had stripped the services of prayers addressed to God, arguing that Jewish identity, culture and ethics didn't require a supernatural belief system, and the congregation reorganized itself around that idea. It grew into the founding congregation of Humanistic Judaism, a movement Wine built into an international network through the Society for Humanistic Judaism, headquartered in the same building. The congregation moved into its current home in Farmington Hills in 1971, a building whose sanctuary features a large Hebrew sculpture spelling out Adam, meaning humankind, in place of a traditional ark holding a Torah scroll. Wine led the congregation until stepping back from the pulpit in 2003; he died in a car accident in Morocco in 2007. The Birmingham Temple still holds services today under its later name, the Congregation for Humanistic Judaism.

1. Founded by Rabbi Sherwin Wine and eight families in 1963
2. The founding congregation of the Humanistic Judaism movement
3. Moved into its Farmington Hills building in 1971
4. Sanctuary features a sculpture spelling out Adam instead of a Torah ark
5. Still an active congregation today