standards, that Jews should not organize as Jews for anything except purely religious purposes, and that in any event Reform Judaism was the future and Orthodox Judaism would not survive. As Lyons put it, To me Reform Judaism is an irresistible conviction. I believe it to be the religion of the Jewish future, while I regard orthodoxy as a survival that may have a galvanized life now and then, but on the whole is doomed. By 1919, Beth Elohim had 133 member families. The congregational school, which held classes once a week, had 305 students and 16 teachers. Negotiations to merge with Union Temple (the successor to Temple Israel) were started in 1925. A confirmation vote eventually passed, and the impending merger was announced in the Brooklyn Eagle. However, younger congregants feared a loss of identity, and forced a withdrawal. Instead, the congregation raised funds for a second building, and in 1928–1929 built the six-story Temple House (used for all congregational activities) on the corner opposite the main sanctuary. Designed by Mortimer Freehof and David Levy, the cast stone building's architectural style was "Jewish Deco", a mix of Romanesque Revival and Art Deco decorative forms that was common in Jewish buildings of the period. Romanesque features included the fenestrations, while a prominent Art Deco feature was "the figure of Moses and the Tablets of Law, emphasizing the corner of the roof parapet." The doorway and balcony at the east end of the building had "a distinctly Moorish flavor, featuring symbolic ornament: the Star of David, the Menorah, and the Lion of Judah." The names of major figures from the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) were inscribed on the Garfield Place facade, and the Biblical verses "SHOW ME THY WAYS O LORD TEACH ME THY PATHS GUIDE ME" () on the Eighth Avenue facade. The building was also decorated with bas-reliefs of Jonah being swallowed by a great fish and Babylonian charioteers. It housed a 125-seat chapel, a large ballroom, social halls, class rooms for the religious school, meeting rooms, administrative offices, a library, handball courts, a gymnasium, and a swimming pool. Lyons took on a number of causes in the 1910s and 1920s. He worked with Bishop David Greer and Rabbi Stephen Wise to expose conditions in New York's tenements, dissociated himself from Tammany Hall candidates, tried to secure a re-trial for Leo Frank, and opposed some of the views of Samuel