Driving northwest on Park Heights Avenue in Pikesville, you’ll see your typical Baltimore suburban neighborhood (modest homes and tree-lined streets), but as you approach Northwestern High School, one building in particular stands out: A unique, salmon-colored building that is Ohr Hamizrach Congregation Sephardic Center.
The building’s exterior displays pointed arches along the top and on the main floor’s windows, bringing Persian architecture to Baltimore.
The congregation has been a hub for the Iranian-Jewish community for over 40 years, and that identity is reflected in its building’s architecture.
“Ohr Hamizrach really is the heart of a contemporary Persian Jewish renaissance,” said Daniel Golfeiz, executive director of Ohr Hamizrach. “In our building, we celebrate the magnificent 2,700-year-old Jewish heritage, which was transported across the country and continent and ocean and to our new home. We didn’t leave it there in the Middle East.”
Today, after 16 years, Golfeiz says they are fundraising to renovate and remodel their social hall, located on the lower level.
When the building finished with its construction in 2009, the congregation was running out of money to finish the bottom floor, according to Goldfeiz, and the social hall was never completed to the same standard as the rest of the center.
“We were kind of running out of money, so we just painted the wall and put in a cheap floor and called it the social hall, and over the years, it worked for us,” Golfeiz explained.
For the congregation, remodeling the social hall will be vital to its livelihood. Not only does it provide an important gathering place for the community but it is also a major source of revenue for the congregation.
“The thing is, the social hall is really revenue for us to meet our yearly budget,” Golfeiz said. “We rent it, not only to our members, but we rent it to whoever wants it for different occasions: bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah, engagement party.”
The building sits on a hill. From the front, you’ll see two levels. However, where the hill slopes down toward the back of the building, the lower level peeks out into the parking lot and holds the congregation’s social hall.
The social hall opens to the building’s parking lot, making it beneficial to hold events on the lower level because of the ease of access to handicap spots in the lot.
Goldfeiz describes Oh Hamizrach as a multigenerational, Jewish-Iranian, American center with a mission to preserve Iranian Jewish heritage in America.
“The grandfather prayed with us, the father prayed with us and now the child,” noted Goldfeiz. “We have a lot of children growing up here, which are eight years, nine years, almost bar mitzvah, and this is the third generation [of the families].”
What began with just 10 immigrants now serves roughly 800 people through a blend of religious, educational and social services.
As they look toward the future, Ohr Hamizrach leaders are focused on preserving their heritage while continuing to grow and serve alongside the wider Jewish community.
“Restoring the glory of our Sephardic and Iranian heritage in reaching this community, but at the same time we’re going to be a part of the bigger community,” said Goldfeiz.
