F TAY-SACHS
R F R E E E E
H eadlines
Shlomo Bar-Ayal is installed as master of the James W. Husted-Fiat
Lux Lodge on May 11, 2019.
Courtesy of Shlomo Bar Ayal
In addition to opening
many Masonic hospitals in the
19th century, Masons are now
known for giving charity to
various organizations, such as
these hospitals.

According to Dov Reidenberg,
a fourth-generation Mason from
Philadelphia, Masonic activi-
ties are tzedakah. Reidenberg’s
lodge periodically spends time
cleaning up and picking up
trash at Har Nebo Cemetery and
Monuments in Philadelphia.

To some outside of the
Masonic community, however,
the connection between Jewry
and Masonry is more sinister.

Among a cadre of conspiracy
theories that the secrecy of
Masonry has excited is the
theory that Masons started the
Holocaust. In reality, Adolf Hit-
ler suspected Masons of working
under Jews and conspiring
against the Nazi regime.

In the true good-spirited
nature of these Masons, the
group was quick to dismiss
this theory, along with others
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM — that Masons are devil-wor-
shippers and are taking over
the government.

“If Masons control the
government and Jews control
the economy, then why did I
go to a community college and
not straight to Harvard or Yale
for free?” Rothberg said.

Judaism and Masonry
are intertwined more deeply
than just the number of Jews
who happen to be Masons.

According to Bar-Ayal, Jews
have been a part of Masonry
for about as long as Masonry
has been around in the United
States, since the 18th century.

Though the fraternity is
seen to outsiders as enigmatic
and exclusive, there are few
rules to becoming a Mason:
One must be a man, believe
in a deity and join the broth-
erhood by his own free will.

Therefore, Masonry did not
preclude Jewish men from
becoming Masons.

Reidenberg adds another
requirement to becoming a
Mason: “To be one, ask one.”
To begin the initiation process,
one must simply ask a Mason
about joining the fraternity.

This simple directive is
largely responsible for what
Bar-Ayal calls “Jewish lodges,”
meetings of Masons that are
largely Jewish, yet a bit of a
paradox, as lodge meetings bar
any discussion of religion or
politics in the space.

Growing membership
through word of mouth,
Jewish Masons tap synagogue
acquaintances to join the
Masonry and, in areas
with large Jewish popula-
tions, Jewish membership of
lodges such as Bar-Ayal’s and
Reidenberg’s lodges snowballs.

Masonry’s domino-effect
recruitment strategy still does
not account for the dwindling
number of Masons in the
U.S. In the 1960s during the
counterculture movement,
Masonry was seen as “square,”
according to Mark Stought, a
Jewish Mason in Cleveland;
it was an organization for
parents or veterans looking
for the comradery they once
had with other soldiers during
wartime. Now that many of these
veterans are gone, Mason
numbers are diminishing, and
lodges are merging to keep
membership numbers up.

Reidenberg, 50, said young
people just aren’t as interested
in joining the brotherhood.

“It’s not a TikTok thing; it’s
not an Instagram thing; it’s not
a Facebook thing,” Reidenberg
said. “Some of the youth today
... it doesn’t appeal to them.”
Reidenberg has
been married to his second wife for
three years and said that his
time as a Mason has helped
him become a better husband.

But Reidenberg doesn’t have
any children, and he said that
his family line of Masons will
end with him.

Reidenberg became a Mason
almost 30 years ago, largely
to spend more time with his
father, who has been a Mason
for almost half a century.

JEWISH EXPONENT
“It’s a legacy that we want
to pass down from one gener-
ation to the next,” Steven
Reidenberg, Dov Reidenberg’s
father, said.

When Dov Reidenberg
joined his father’s lodge in 1994,
which at that point was about
85-90% Jewish, he remembered
doing something that made his
grandfather laugh, a memory
he still holds onto almost 30
years later.

“When he passed back in
1995, it was one of the things
that I remembered about him,
that I made him laugh in a lodge
meeting,” Dov Reidenberg said.

Dov Reidenberg is hopeful
that Masonry will continue to
endure, even though he’s uncer-
tain there will be a fifth generation
of Reidenberg Masons.

Masonry doesn’t need to be
trendy, as long as it continues
to attract those who share the
values of the centuries of men
who came before them: “To
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JULY 29, 2021
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