wife Paula Ackerman to take his place until they could find a replacement. No women had been ordained at this time, and it would be a full 20 more years before the first woman would be officially ordained in the United States. Nonetheless, without ordination Paula Ackerman served as "spiritual leader" (the congregation elected not to call her "rabbi") for three years until Beth Israel could find another. Despite the unwillingness to call Ackerman "rabbi," she performed all the duties of a normal rabbi, including conducting weekly Shabbat services, giving sermons, and performing marriages and funerals. In spite of much media attention and criticism from other Jews in the country, the congregation remained united under her leadership. (Ackerman would later move to her original home of Pensacola, Florida, where she would serve as an interim rabbi at Temple Beth-El for nine months in 1962 until a replacement was found.) By 1964, the temple was in need of repairs, and some older members found it difficult to get up the steep marble steps at the entrance. Instead of repairing their 60-year-old building in downtown, they purchased a plot in the Broadmoor residential subdivision of Meridian and built a new synagogue. The new facility, located at 57th Court and 14th Avenue, was dedicated in December 1964 and was composed of a 200-seat sanctuary, a social hall with a kitchen and a library, and an education building. 1968 Ku Klux Klan bombing During the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, the leadership of Beth Israel spoke out against the Ku Klux Klan's attacks on black churches. In response, Thomas Tarrants of Mobile, Alabama, who had helped bomb the synagogue building of Beth Israel Congregation and its rabbi's house there bombed Beth Israel's education building on May 28, 1968. The blast was caused by about 15 sticks of dynamite planted by Tarrants and his accomplice, Danny Joe Hawkins, a top hitman in the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The force of the blast knocked down several walls of the education building and caved in part of the roof while also destroying a door at the opposite end of the synagogue building. A hole approximately in diameter was left in the concrete floor, and damages were estimated to be around $50,000 (equivalent to $ today). A reward of $10,000 was offered by the Meridian City Council, and $15,000 extra was promised by