feed them". However, his suggestion that the congregation move to a larger building in a new location outside downtown Dayton, while taken seriously, was not acted on. Membership had grown to 206 families by 1919. The congregational school held classes twice a week, and had 8 classes, 10 teachers, and 140 students. That year the synagogue's total income was $10,000 (today $). In 1920, Lefkowitz moved to Temple Emanu-El, Dallas's largest and oldest synagogue. Salem and Emerson building Samuel S. Mayersberg succeeded Lefkowitz as rabbi. He was "known for his oratorical skills and his crusades for moral and police reforms in Dayton". His major goal during his ministry was to acquire larger premises outside downtown Dayton, which was realized in 1927 when the congregation moved to a new building at Salem and Emerson Avenues. Besides the main sanctuary, which had seating for 600 people, the structure included a social hall and kitchen, classrooms, and offices. It was at that time that the congregation began to use the name "Temple Israel". Mayersberg left that year, and became the rabbi of Congregation B'nai Jehudah of Kansas City, Missouri. During his tenure, membership increased to 200 families. Louis Witt succeeded Mayersberg in 1927. He worked on fostering interfaith relations, and, like his predecessors, was active in community and civic life. A tall man who sometimes wore a swallow-tail coat when conducting services, he was a strong proponent of "Classical Reform" principles, and while he was rabbi, following his preference, no one wore a skullcap in the Temple. In 1929, at the second UAHC convention, Witt had asserted that America "by its very pleasantness and friendliness lures us away from our ancient loyalties. Its secularism is so delightful, its mutuality so penetrative, its universalism so delightful, that by a sort of sheer spiritual osmosis it incorporates us into itself and makes us look and become more and more like itself". Witt argued that Jews had to resist this pull. Ten years later, however, in a 1939 article in The Christian Century, he argued that Jews should celebrate Christmas. In his view, Christians were now more liberal and celebrated "the inherent humanness and universalism" of Christmas, rather than any specifically Christian doctrine. Stating that his children had been deprived of the holiday's pleasures, Witt asserted that Judaism was already a syncretic religion, and that celebrating the holiday was an ecumenical act which did not indicate