European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 20, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes religion saturday August 20,1994 jews7 numbers dwindle in american heartland byte Klass the associated press Sioux City Iowa the list of the dead fills the rear Wall at the share Zion synagogue and extends Down each Side of the Cathedral like Sanctuary. A thousand names give or take a few each in he brew and English each with its own remembrance Light seven or More per household in the dwindling conservative jewish congregation. Each year More lights. Each year fewer members. Sioux City is an archetype of America s vanishing heartland jewish communities the quiet fading of a once vibrant often Quirky feature of the nation s Small town social and cultural landscape. As a part of this upheaval share Zion will be mount Olive Baptist Church next year. Two blocks South and two blocks East faded yellow paint is peeling from the 93-year-old United orthodox synagogue one of the oldest in continuous use in the upper Midwest. Services Are Down from twice daily to once a week. It takes help from share Zion Gates of Zion to get the 10 men older than 13 who Are required for formal worship. Even with a Cane and a companion rabbi Saul i. Bolotnikov 87, can barely manage the three blocks be tween Home and shul. When Bolotnikov cannot attend there is no one to read the scripture. Without him the congregation will cease to exist and the City will be without an ordained rabbi for the first time in nearly a Century. I m just about finished he said. Cater cornered from the orthodox shul immigrants speaking Khmer lao vietnamese or Spanish study English As a second language and Send their preschool ers to a head Start program at the jewish Community Center. Why not use it it s just sitting there empty said Doris e. Dodo Rosenthal executive director of the jewish federation of Sioux City. It s so Good to see some life in  next year the 10,000-Square-foot building is going up for Sale. What was once the Center of Iowa s second largest jewish Community is becoming a nondescript tender loin on the fringe of Northern downtown. Share Zion and a smaller Reform Temple mount Sinai Are merging into a dual affiliation synagogue Tobe called Beth a Hoium. Community  $1 million to remodel mount Sinai s Temple and add federation offices More classrooms a Chapel and Mikvah or ritual Bath. James Sherman Lay spiritual Leader of share Zion is taking the combined pulpit. A holocaust memorial will be moved from the Corn Unity Center to the Temple grounds. V.y-.-. A a. A a -. Tucked away in a residential area two Miles North of share Zion the Temple will be the last stand for 560 jews the remnants of a Community that numbered As Many As 3,000 Between world wars i and ii. Most Are Over 65. Of the children few expect to stay. Outposts of Judaism from a few dozen to a few thou Sand soils once stretched from mining and logging Camps in the West to antebellum Cotton and tobacco towns in the South. They produced the likes of supreme court Justice Louis d. Brandeis escape artist Harry Houd Iii and Singer songwriter Bob Dylan. From Sioux City came advice columnists Ann land ers and Abigail Van Buren noteworthy diplomats medical researchers lawyers and business entre pre nears. " in a generation or less Only the Graves of those who stayed or returned to be buried May be left. Around Iowa once thriving  Are Down to double or even single digits in Centerville Dubuque fort Dodge Keokuk Marshalltown Mason City Muscatine new Hampton Oskaloosa and Ottumwa. A. Only in Des Moines Home to nearly half the state s 6,000 jews and the University towns of Ames and Cedar rapids Iowa City has there been stability or modest growth. James Sherman Lay spiritual Leader of share Zion synagogue in Sioux City Iowa will take the combined pulpit of share Zion where he sits and a smaller Reform Temple when the two congregations merge. The merger was forced by declining jewish population in the area. A a Man walks past the United orthodox synagogue in Sioux City Iowa in May. Built in 1901 As a Reform Temple if was the City s first jewish House of worship. I think what you re seeing there is certainly characteristic of a number of Small towns. Mostly in the Midwest and South said Sidney Goldstein a sociologist at Brown University in Providence . In the 1880s, about 30 percent of All . Jews lived in jewish communities of fewer than 1,000, the kind found mostly outside major metropolitan areas jews Are becoming More dispersed a study found 90 percent living in the nation s 30 largest metropolitan areas in 19s6, compared with 90 percent in the 17 larg est metropolitan areas in 1936 but fewer Are in out lying areas. In 1957, american jewish committee figures showed 90 percent of the nation s teen age and adult jews lived in Urban areas with at least 250,000 residents. Of the 5.8 million jews in the United states today slightly  half live in Center cities 45 percent Are in suburbs and 5 percent Are outside metropolitan . Baptists single out unwed people for attention from the associated press Greenville . An increasing number of people filling the pews on sunday morning Are single sending some South Carolina churches a message that they need to do More for people without spouses. By the year 2000, it s projected half of the adults will be single said Tim Cleary of the Southern Baptist convention. Do you choose As a Church just to minister to half of the adults in your Community or do you see your Mission and Christ s Mission As speaking to All the adults Cleary who is a single adult ministry specialist for the convention noted that Jesus was single. The single lifestyle is As viable As the married lifestyle and the Bible certainly bears that out Cleary said. Officials said Baptist methodist presbyterian and other churches Are catching up to an Era in which marriage in t considered the Only Way to go. Meanwhile singles social and prayer groups Are popping up in roman Catholic churches. But Cleary said churches need to be careful not to think of themselves As a marriage  some churches think let s get these poor single adults together and meet somebody and get married and be Happy and be a whole person " he said. The Church needs to be showing single adults How to live their lives As whole  minister follows right Pat Nashville Tenn. The Rev. E. Lee Hyden an sex convict and former state official says he s doing Church work to make up for the time he gave to satan. Hyden 69, is the new pastor of Franklin Cumberland presbyterian Church. He was director of the state s alcoholic beverage commission during the administration of former gov. Ray Blanton. Hyden a Shelby county Road commissioner before receiving the Blanton appointment was sent to prison in 1980 on a 1978 conviction for extortion and conspiracy. He was found guilty of using his office to get payoffs from a real estate Developer in Shelby county. After his release from prison in 1982, Hyden enrolled in Memphis theological Seminary a Cumberland presbyterian school. Upon his graduation from Seminary in 1988, he became pastor of Camden Cumberland presbyterian Church in Camden Tenn. At the same time he was developing a Lay conference Center at Bethel College and working with a Christian ministry helping get jobs for people getting out of  he was diagnosed with cancer in 1993, he resigned from the full time pastorate at Carnder. With cancer now in remission tie is preaching again. I was trying to catch up for All the lost years the years i had Given to satan he said. I just Hope i can live Long enough and have the Energy to give to the lord the same number of  Ghi id payments ordered Montpelier it. A Vermont supreme court has ordered a member of a communal Church to pay child support to his sex wife even though Church doctrine prohibits such payments and the. Man has no income. But the supreme court ruled that Eugene Hunt of the Community at Island Pond should not have been held in contempt of court for failing to make child support payments because they infringed on his Freedom of religion. The High court found that Hunt s obligation to care for his children outweighed his Freedom of religion and thus he should be required to make the $50 a month payments to his former wife. The order represents the least restrictive Means for the state to further a Paramount interest inhaling parents recognize their obligation to provide material support for their children said the ruling written by chief Justice Frederic Allen. Hunt has been a member of the Church for 14 years. His wife left the Church in 1989, and they were divorced a year later. Hunt has maintained that neither he nor the. Church recognizes her decision to leave him and so he cannot support her outside the Church Community