Three decades of dedication

Michele Marr

Ask any member of Temple Bat Yahm where the 30-year-old Newport Beach

synagogue would be today if it weren’t for Bernie and Joan Rome, two

of its founding members, and they’re likely to tell you they just

can’t picture it.

“It’s difficult to imagine how Temple Bat Yahm would have reached

and exceeded its goals so well without them,” said Martin Brower, an

early member of the congregation who has known the Romes for almost

30 years.

The temple began in 1973 with the vision of eight founding

couples, among them Bernie and Joan Rome, who were determined to

build a Reform Jewish congregation in Orange County that would have a

building of its own, an outstanding religious school, an

inspirational pulpit leader and no restriction on the size of its

membership.

Tonight, to recognize the Rome’s three decades of leadership,

labor and support that have helped make these very ambitious goals

attainable, Rabbi Mark S. Miller will present the couple with Temple

Bat Yahm’s Spirit of Life Award.

“It’s one thing to talk. It’s another to do,” Brower said. “Bernie

and Joan do.”

Bernie Rome began working for the fledgling synagogue as its

treasurer during its first year. By the end of that year, the rapidly

growing congregation had a full-time rabbi and 55 member families,

but they were meeting in whichever rented facilities would

accommodate them.

In 1975, Bernie Rome became the synagogue’s second president and

the congregation, with a membership of 120 families, began to look in

earnest for a permanent home. They found 4.5 acres, originally

earmarked for the John Wayne Tennis Club, on Camelback Street in

Newport Beach.

“We worked with The Irvine Company to pick up that land,” Bernie

Rome said. “Then there was a long struggle to change the use of the

land to religious purposes.”

And there was also the matter of a building. The congregation

discovered that Great Western Savings was moving out of a

prefabricated building in Newport Center, and Bernie Rome worked with

the bank to acquire the 2,200 square-foot building for Temple Bat

Yahm.

The building was moved to Camelback Street among a procession of

congregants on Aug. 11, 1976, at 2:08 a.m. The building was small,

but it was a building. Every square foot was put to use. Even the

drive-up teller window was fully enclosed to create an office for the

rabbi.

Since that time, Bernie Rome has served as the chairman of the

synagogue’s building committee and chairman of its building fund. The

congregation built a 31,000 square-foot facility and later a nearly

30,000 square-foot expansion for its more than 650 family and single

members.

Bernie and Joan Rome have served on many of congregation’s boards

and committees. Bernie Rome has served on the board of Heritage

Pointe, a retirement living development, and on the board and on the

land search committee for the Orange County’s Jewish Home for the

Aging.

“Joan and I feel there isn’t any task that’s either too large or

two small that we couldn’t accept responsibility for over the years,”

Bernie Rome said.

In 1994, Joan Rome received the Temple Bat Yahm Sisterhood’s Woman

of the Year Award for temple services, services that have included

volunteering in the temple’s Sisterhood gift shop, helping to prepare

for bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah receptions, preparing mailings,

helping compile the annual Yom Kippur remembrance book and singing in

the choir.

“Both Joan and Bernie have been leaders of this congregation and

servants of the Jewish people,” Miller said. “They have done so much

work behind the scenes, so many hours when few people would see them

at work, early in the morning before anyone was here and late at

night, out of a real selfless love for this temple.”

The Romes, for their part, credit the temple’s founding families,

its members, its boards, its clergy and its staff, including Miller

and Rabbi Rayna Gevurtz and Cantor Jonathan Grant. They praise their

vision, their abilities and their willingness to shoulder enormous

responsibilities.

“When I see what has been created, this entire campus, I think it

is almost a miracle,” Joan Rome said. “It’s going to be wonderful for

those who are going to follow us, and I hope they will do the same

for others. As we say in our Jewish religion, ‘L’dor v’dor,’ which

means ‘from generation to generation.’ That is what is so rewarding.

Not just the brick and mortar, but what it’s used for.”

“Joan is absolutely right,” Bernie Rome said.