A New Mikvah Opens in Capital of Oregon

by Nancy K. S. Hochman – chabad.org

On Sunday, March 3, nearly 100 people gathered in celebration and support of the newly inaugurated Mei Perel Glikel – The Salem Mikvah in Oregon’s capital city of Salem.

The sparkling new mikvah is a milestone for the city’s 1,500 or so Jews, said Fruma Perlstein, co-director with her husband, Rabbi Avrohom Perlstein, of the Chabad-Lubavitch of Salem Center for Jewish Life.

Despite snow-laden streets, the inauguration attracted residents from Salem, neighboring areas and guests from around the country, many of whom helped support the construction of the new, state-of-the art mikvah.

In designing the mikvah, Fruma Perlstein added mauves and pinks and special lighting with the goal of making the mikvah, which will be used primarily by women, more feminine. “Our goal was to have the mikvah match a rustic cabin-in-the-woods feeling, while also feeling luxurious,” she said.

Immersion in the mikvah is an integral part of Taharat Hamishpachah, or Family Purity, and a cornerstone of Jewish life. So important is mikvah, that Jewish law allows for the sale of both synagogue and Torah scroll to raise funds for its construction. “It is no exaggeration to state,” writes Rivka Slonim in Chabad.org’s extensive explainer article, “that the mikvah is a touchstone of Jewish life and the portal to a Jewish future.”

Until now, however, Salem—the state’s capital and home to scenic vistas, vineyards and the annual Agricultural State Fair—did not have one. The closest mikvah to Salem was in Portland, a more than hour drive away, and even longer when frequent rainstorms made travel conditions more difficult. This proved a great challenge for local Jewish women contemplating the mitzvah.

Since the Perlsteins arrived in Salem 17 years ago, their Chabad center has reinvigorated Jewish life in the small city. In recent years, they’ve also seen sharply increased engagement from the younger demographic, Jewish families who would greatly benefit from a mikvah in close proximity to the Chabad center and synagogue. So the couple decided to take the plunge and start on the often difficult road to designing, financing and building a mikvah.

“Our philosophy was simple,” Fruma Perlstein told Chabad.org. “Build it, and they will come.”

When It’s Time, It’s Time

Dr. Elizabeth Steiner, a trained family physician, and close friend of the Perlsteins, has served as an Oregon state senator since 2012. While in legislative session at the state capital, she spends Shabbats with the Perlsteins, and is an enthusiastic supporter and participant at the Chabad Center of Jewish Life. When she moved to Portland back in 1981, there was only one Chabad center in the entire state. There are now 13—and two more in the works—according to Chabad-Lubavitch of Oregon.

“Helping people observe mitzvot is all about reducing barriers … and helping Jewish people feel connected,” she explained.

While she lives close to the mikvah in Portland, she can understand how a far drive to a mikvah can become more of a chore than an act of devotion and joy.

“A mikvah is so central to a Jewish community. If you’re building a Jewish community, a mikvah needs to be a part of that,” said Rabbi Perlstein. While many of his congregants are retirees who’ve moved to Salem for quality of life or to be closer to their children, “the mikvah represents the unity of the Jewish family, and community.” Salem’s new mikvah will also serve the nearby towns of Eugene and Corvallis, and Rabbi Perlstein said that it will cut travel time for attendees from those communities by half.

In addition to the younger demographic, many people learn about mikvah later in life. When Marlene Eichner—one of the contributors to the building of the new mikvah—first chose to go to mikvah in 2016, it was around her 25th wedding anniversary. At the time, Fruma Perlstein accompanied her on the more than hour drive to Portland.

For Eichner, a resident of Salem since 2005 and already a grandmother at the time, the tranquility and serenity of the ritual struck her deeply. “I appreciated the deliberateness in planning to enter the mikvah, and the sense of joy and calmness I felt in the mikvah waters,” she said. She likened the calming waters of the mikvah “to a room of [G‑d]: a place to separate from one’s ego, and to leave the struggles behind. The mikvah is the heart and soul of the Jewish community.”

Turning a Dream Into a Reality

Aron Arye Eisenberg purchased the honor of naming the mikvah—Perel Glikel Mikvah—in memory of his first wife, Perel, who sadly passed away in her early 30s with no surviving children.

Eisenberg, who serves as a motivational inspirational speaker for Mikvah USA, a New York-based organization established in 1996 to provide engineering, design and fundraising support for the construction of kosher mikvahs, spoke with deep feeling about how building a mikvah in merit of a loved one, even for a community you have never met, “is an ironclad means” for bringing blessings down upon your own family and community.

Eisenberg shared with the crowd that it was bashert—destined—that the inauguration, originally scheduled for another date, had been moved one week forward. “Today is 23 Adar I, which would have been my wife’s 49th birthday,” he told the audience at the inauguration, “a shemitah birthday year.”

The road to the mikvah’s completion was a long one. The Perlsteins started off by soliciting donations locally and then joined forces with six other Chabad centers in localities with smaller Jewish communities to raise with the help of Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch—Chabad’s central educational arm—$1.5 million, which was divided among the participating communities. Grants provided by Mikvah USA helped finally make Salem’s mikvah a reality.

Of the seven small towns who raised money together, Chabad of Salem’s is the fifth to complete their mikvah. Kotlarsky noted that the two remaining mikvahs have broken ground, and had cement poured and the structure framed.

“Some 99 percent of people who contribute money to building a mikvah know nothing about the community the money will go toward,” explained Rabbi Shloime Rosenberger, an employee of Mikvah USA, noting that the organization has a running list of communities requesting support. Often, couples or relatives of couples going through the painful struggle of trying, unsuccessfully, to start a family, donate funds for the construction of a mikvah in the merit of receiving a blessing from On High for themselves or their loved ones. “Every day, we witness friends and family donate money in honor of a couple having difficulty conceiving,” he added, “and every day we hear about couples becoming pregnant shortly thereafter.”

“Mikvah USA was amazing to work with,” said Rabbi Perlstein. “They’ve been incredible with engineering, design and fundraising,” adding that Mikvah USA was involved with three other mikvahs opening on the same Sunday that Salem’s Perel Glikel Mikvah was inaugurated.

A Community Initiative

Pegge McGuire and her husband, both of whom discovered later in life that they are Jewish, have been affiliated with the Center of Jewish Life for the last decade or so, and also contributed to the building of the mikvah.

“The thread throughout the presentations and videos is the importance of our future of raising Jewish children … the beautiful confluence of all the children for all generations to come will demonstrate Jewish growth in Salem,” said McGuire after the inauguration. “Some point in the future, I picture that people will say: ‘Oh, you’re from Salem. Doesn’t your town have a large Jewish community?’ ”

McGuire originally moved to Salem in large part to be near her two sons and her granddaughter. She hopes that her and her husband’s partnership in the new mikvah will make it as easy as possible for her granddaughter to partake in the mitzvah one day.

While Salem’s beautiful new mikvah will first and foremost benefit the local Jewish community, Rabbi Perlstein noted that it could not have happened without friends and strangers around the globe. “Jews throughout the world wanted to rally behind a mikvah in a small town,” he said. “And it’s come to fruition only because of this amazing display of Jewish unity. We really are one big Jewish family.”