Beautiful interior paintings that led to the synagogue’s listing on the National Register of Historic Places

Jews had begun arriving in the area of what was then known as Centerville around 1900. They overcame early prejudice sufficiently for some to have been among the village’s founding officers when it incorporated. Centerville’s first synagogue, Anshei Centerville, was established in 1903. Centerville was renamed Woodridge in 1917 in the hopes of attracting more summer visitors. By the 1930s, the village was primarily Jewish, and the center of that community within Sullivan County.
The Ohave Shalom Synagogue is a brick building erected in 1930 by a splinter group from what was then the village’s only synagogue, later absorbed into Ohave Shalom itself.

Its interior is decorated with paintings on religious themes. It was not the only synagogue in Sullivan County ever built with such decoration, but it is the only one where the paintings survive, although they are not as extensive as they were when the synagogue was first built. They led to its listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.

The paintings are not as extensive as they originally were, but cover several locations. Wall panels depict holy places in Jerusalem, a continuous frieze depicts the signs of the zodiac, the gallery is backed with a landscape mural, and the one surviving ceiling image is the center medallion, a radiating fan shape with gold border.

Both the ark platform and bimah are made of wood with turned posts and rounded tops. The ark is flanked with columns and topped with Lions of Judah holding the Ten Commandments. Above it the stained glass window has large sunbursts and Stars of David. Three decorative chandeliers hang from the barrel-vaulted ceiling.

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