MYSTERY: A gazebo or maybe something else?

This week’s mystery surely looks like a gazebo, but it’s probably something else.  What and where?  Send your best guess – plus your name and hometown – to editor@charlestoncurrents.com.  In the subject line, write: “Mystery Photo guess.” (If you don’t include your contact information, we can’t give you credit!)

Last issue’s mystery

Avid reader and photographer Bill Segars of Hartsville snapped the photo of the June 1 mystery, which is Temple Sinai in Sumter.  It’s been in the news recently because its social hall and educational center have been converted into a new Jewish History Center.  (Read more.)

Congratulations to those who identified the building correctly:  former state Sen. Phil Leventis, who lives in Sumter; George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; and Tom Tindall of Edisto Island.

Leventis told our sister publication, Statehouse Report, that he attended the center’s opening ceremony on June 2:  “The group was addressed by my friend Roger Ackerman, who spoke about our friend Abe Stern who survived the Nazi concentration camps and used to have the tattoo to prove it.

“Abe once told me that he had the tattoo removed by his doctor here in Sumter.  When his doctor saw it, he inquired what it was.  Abe told him.  The doctor asked if he wanted it removed to which Abe responded it never did anything for him.  So it was gone.  The only symbol it represented to him was terrible memories.  It was no badge of honor, just a reminder of horror.”

Graf provided additional context:  “Temple Sinai, a Reform Jewish Congregation located on Church Street, has entered into a new partnership with the Sumter County Museum. Over the years, dwindling numbers in the temple’s congregation have led its members to consider long-term planning for the building itself, if the day comes when the congregation is no longer viable.

“In this new partnership, the congregation will still use the temple sanctuary to conduct Friday night and holiday services, but the museum will use the adjoining social hall to create a permanent exhibit about Jewish history in South Carolina and Sumter. The museum will also include a large section devoted to the Holocaust and Sumter’s ties to the Holocaust.

“The first Jewish citizens of Sumter arrived from Charleston around 1815.Two early organizations preceded the formation of a Jewish congregation in Sumter. The Hebrew Cemetery Society was formed and land purchased for a cemetery in 1874. The Sumter Hebrew Benevolent Society was organized by 1881. Shortly thereafter, the two groups merged and in 1885, the group formally became known as The Sumter Society of Israelites, the official name of present-day Congregation Sinai. Although regular Sabbath worship and Sunday school classes were held in the late 1800s, the first official synagogue, a wooden structure, was not built until the first decade of the 1900s. It unfortunately burned and was replaced with the present brick building in 1913. The temple’s construction is unusual, with its Moorish design and large, uniquely-crafted stained glass windows. The synagogue was established as and has always been a Reform Jewish congregation.”

Send us a mystery:  If you have a photo that you believe will stump readers, send it along (but make sure to tell us what it is because it may stump us too!)   Send it along to editor@charlestoncurrents.com.