that he was "thereby drawn even by the breadth of a hair nearer to the worship of an ecclesiastical Christ". He concluded by asking "Is it neither treason of Jew nor triumph of Christian but partnership of Jew and Christian in the making of a better world in which the Christ can have part only by energizing and perpetuating and hallowing the partnership?" During Witt's tenure, Dayton experienced an influx of Jewish immigration, and the original German-Jewish constituency of the congregation became more diverse. Family membership reached 500 by 1945. New sanctuary during Selwyn Ruslander's tenure Following Witt's retirement in 1947, Selwyn D. Ruslander succeeded him. Born in Pennsylvania in 1911, Ruslander had graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1931, and was ordained at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati in 1935. He worked at a number of non-rabbinic jobs (including as an Ordinary Seaman in the U.S. Merchant Marine), and several rabbinic positions, including both pulpit and non-pulpit roles. In 1939 he was appointed Director of Youth Education for the UAHC, and also became the first director of the National Federation of Temple Youth (now North American Federation of Temple Youth). In 1942, during World War II, he took a leave of absence from the UAHC to volunteer for the armed forces as a U.S. Navy chaplain. From 1943 to 1945 he served with the United States Eighth Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea, "the first Jewish chaplain in the history of the Navy to serve with a combat fleet", and earned a Combat Star for his participation in Operation Shingle. He was released from active duty in December 1946, and returned briefly to the UAHC, then went to South Shore Temple in Chicago, before taking the role at Temple Israel. Ruslander brought some traditionalism back to the congregation; he reinstated the Bar Mitzvah and inaugurated the Bat Mitzvah celebrations, and re-organized the religious school and added Hebrew to its curriculum. Like his predecessors, he was very active in Dayton's civic life, serving on the boards of a large number of community organizations. Ruslander was possibly Dayton's then "best known clergyman of any faith", and during his tenure Temple Israel experienced rapid growth. In 1953, Temple Israel constructed a new sanctuary at its Salem and Emerson location, and connected it to the original building. By the end of the 1960s membership increased to 1,100 families, and Temple Israel hired Howard