When he isn’t running a security firm, Sy Hoff is an amateur magician. In fact, he even keeps a deck of cards in his pocket at all times just in case somebody has a grandchild who needs to be amazed.
With minimal pressure, Hoff agrees to an impromptu show. And, surely enough, the two of clubs is the only reversed card in the deck.
Wow — that’s magic.
“Nah,” said Hoff with a dismissive wave of his hand.
He gestured at the newly completed home of San Jose’s Conservative Congregation Sinai, of which he is board president.
“That’s magic.”
To adopt the parlance of the sleek, new $6.6 million synagogue’s Silicon Valley digs, it’s a major upgrade over Sinai’s previous incarnation.
“I don’t have anything against drab green,” deadpanned Rabbi Eitan Julius when recalling — none too fondly — the prior structure.
“It looked like something you’d see in Israel. Maybe a little army base.”
Especially the classroom in the back, a temporary trailer that, out of necessity, became permanent.
“Everything was makeshift,” said Hoff, a congregant since 1968, with a shake of his head.
“We tore everything down and rebuilt it from the ground up.”
And Hoff is not hesitant to evoke the “Field of Dreams” mantra: “If you build it, they will come.” Sinai currently boasts 150 member families, and Hoff and Julius hope a new home — one that is not only not falling apart but shiny and new — will help double that tally in five years.
The trailers, the olive drab exterior, the shabbiness — all that is gone. Classrooms and the nursery school are light, spacious and indoors. The entire synagogue complex, while small, is built around a grass courtyard, and Hoff notes that the synagogue’s third-string ark can be dragged outside for a wedding under the sun.
Two minyanim meet in the new sanctuary building (which features stained glass pomegranates with 613 visible seeds).
But the highlight of Congregation Sinai’s new home is its double-decker sanctuary, equipped with a balcony for overflow crowds.
A wall of actual Jerusalem stone houses the arch-shaped arc, and resembles the Wailing Wall to such a degree that Hoff notes, half-jokingly, that no placing of notes is permitted.
The stones weigh 60 pounds apiece, and there are more than 100 of them, which required the construction of an embedded steel skeleton capable of safely bearing the incredible weight. Hoff acknowledges that the steel skeleton actually cost more than the stones.
The ark, designed by New York artist David Ascalon, is scheduled to arrive this week, in time for the synagogue’s Sunday, Sept. 25, dedication. Until that time, Hoff is carrying an artist’s rendering of the ark in his pocket. Like the deck of cards, he has it on his body at all times.
The synagogue raised the lion’s share of the $6.6 million price tag by selling off a parcel of land adjacent to its main structure housing a few trees and a few old houses it rented out.
Developers paid $4 million for the land, and erected a 21-house development. The loss of the tenants cut off a cash inflow for Sinai, and provides all the more impetus to attract new congregants, Hoff said.
“For $4 million, we got 21 new neighbors,” he added, glancing out the windows at the town houses.
The synagogue passed the hat for the remaining funds, and has paid off all but the last quarter of a million dollars.
And, for the first time, Hoff and Julius won’t have to rely on magic to attract new congregants.
“Sure, I think so,” answered Julius when asked if it was realistic to double his congregation in five years time.
“We’ve even got enough parking.”