Thoughts on your synagogue?

Hi All,

My wife and I just moved into town a few months ago and are going to visit congregations Oheb Shalom and Beth El in the coming weeks. I would be interested to know if you belong to one or the other and how you've enjoyed your membership at either one or both. We don't have kids yet and are looking for an open, caring, diverse community where we can make friends.

Your insights are appreciated!

Cheers,
Andrew

Any reason you are not including TSTI? Btw I am not a member of any of the shuls in town

We have been members of Oheb for 6 years or so and have been happy. We've met great people and love Rabbi Cooper. We also know people who are at Beth El and enjoy it there, as well.

We are very happy members of Beth El - please come by to visit our inclusive, progressive, and welcoming community! Welcome to he neighborhood!

LL_ said:

Any reason you are not including TSTI? Btw I am not a member of any of the shuls in town

Assume OP is looking for a conservative synagogue. TSTI is a reform synagogue.

Oheb Shalom Congregation will welcome you with open arms. Please come visit us and see what we're
all about. There's lots of info about the synagogue on our website,
http://www.ohebshalom.org/
We've been members since we moved to South Orange in 1996.

Hi Andrew,

Oheb Shalom member here. It is a warm, welcoming community where you will find lots of different types of people and families, and lots of different ways to get involved in the community. The shul also has a fantastic, top-of-the-line preschool, for when you get to that phase in your lives... I will follow up with you via PM.

Hi,

Until three years ago, I would have sung high the praises of Beth El. Unfortunately, an internal dispute which led to the beloved cantor being discharged after 20 years of service led about 75 families to resign in disgust and start a new congregation in South Orange, Kol-Rina an independent minion. Many of those who departed had been members for more than 30 years. This new congregation does not have a preschool but its members are warm and friendly. The clergy person most responsible for the upheaval at Beth EL has since left but most of the activists who caused the problem are still pompously walking around. So if you are interested give Kol Rina a tryout. You might like it.

minion:

Minyan:

@villagehallperson Really? Engage in lashon hara much? But you are not a very good advertisement for Kol Rina (which I know is made up of many lovely people).

"A man is rescued from a desert island after 20 years. The news media, amazed at this feat of survival, ask him to show them his home.
"How did you survive? How did you keep sane?" they ask him, as he shows them around the small island.
"I had my faith. My faith as a Jew kept me strong. Come." He leads them to a small glen, where stands an opulent synagogue, made entirely from palm fronds, coconut shells and woven grass. The news cameras take pictures of everything – even a torah made from banana leaves and written in octopus ink. "This took me five years to complete."
"Amazing! And what did you do for the next fifteen years?"
"Come with me." He leads them around to the far side of the island. There, in a shady grove, is an even more beautiful synagogue. "This one took me twelve years to complete!"
"But sir" asks the reporter, "Why did you build two synagogues?"
"This is the synagogue I attend. That other place? Hah! I wouldn't set foot in that other synagogue if you PAID me!""

Let's please not start a public bashing of one another here.

There was a split, now there are two places. The OP can check them all out and decided where his or her family would be most comfortable

Well, that didn't take long...

I have been a congregant of Beth El for 10 years and have been extremely happy. Both my children attended preschool there and they are both in JLC there. My daughter also does the teen program there. What first drew me to Beth el was it's laid back, yet progressive atmosphere. I also felt it wasn't judgy like the synagogue I grew up in. While Conservative, I never felt out of place as part of an interfaith couple and you find members that come from all walks of life. They are strong believers in tikkun olam and are partners in the interfaith food pantry. Our new rabbi is fabulous and brings a fantastic energy. The shul that villagehall talks about above bears no resemblance to the synagogue I belong to and frankly the bitterness and nastiness displayed makes me glad that they left. We are a welcoming, warm and community, check us out. Of course the best way to decide is to attend some events and see where you are more comfortable.

We are new members of Beth El (after "trying it on" after we had kids). My kids are still young (5 and 4). We are very happy there in the short time we've been members. What I like it for the reasons mamabear mentioned above, and also that many of the families with children in my kids school are members there as well. I am looking forward to being more involved there over time.

Thank you all for your thoughtful comments! The wealth of programming at Oheb Shalom and Beth Ell make them both quite appealing (I'm particularly interested in Talmud Tuesday at OS).

We are an interfaith couple (I'm Jewish), so it's very important to me that my wife feels comfortable in the community. Both shuls look like they have progressive values, which is an absolute must. It doesn't look like there will be any issue there. We'll just have to visit and see for ourselves.

We are an interfaith family and found Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel to be very welcoming. The clergy are very special people. I would give it a try.

We are a non Jewish family and found TSTI to be a great place to send our kids to preschool. They are very welcoming.

If you are an interfaith family, please check out each temple's policy on religious ceremonies and see how they handle non-Jewish parents/siblings/etc.

Plenty of bitterness and nastiness on both sides that is probably worth keeping off MOL.

Also check out Kol Rina, which is lay led.

If a conservative synagogue is not a must, I would suggest trying TSTI as well. Here is the link to the temple's website:

http://www.tsti.org/

I am the non-Jew in an interfaith couple and we belong to TSTI. If your wife is not Jewish, a conservative shul may not consider your (future) children to be Jews. TSTI recognizes patrilineal descent and will consider your children to be Jews for Hebrew school, etc.

gilora said:

I am the non-Jew in an interfaith couple and we belong to TSTI. If your wife is not Jewish, a conservative shul may not consider your (future) children to be Jews. TSTI recognizes patrilineal descent and will consider your children to be Jews for Hebrew school, etc.

gilora, may I respectfully request that you--as a member of a Reform and not a Conservative synagogue--not confuse historic Conservative Movement doctrine with the latter-day, real-world practices of individual Conservative synagogues? A great deal of progress has been made in recent years in terms of how interfaith couples are integrated into synagogue life. And regarding children of interfaith marriages -- I quote from a document posted on the website of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism that provides guidance to kehillot (congregations) on how to better welcome non-Jewish spouses and interfaith families:

The kehilla should provide Jewish education and social opportunities for all children up to the age of Bar/Bat Mitzvah (with appropriate counseling of interfaith families) and for Jewish children or those actively in the process of conversion older than age 13 as well.

I would point out, as others in this thread have already done, that the OP specifically inquired about the two Conservative synagogues in town. I assume that if he were interested in a Reform synagogue he would have included TSTI in his original inquiry. I don't think this is a case of the OP not knowing that TSTI existed...

Conservative synagogues are required by their association with the Conservative body to follow the rules on wko isa jew. So they can try to be welcoming but can not consider a child with a non jewish mother as jewish unless there is a conversion. Nor can a Conservative rabbi even attend a mixed marriage.

ram said:

Conservative synagogues are required by their association with the Conservative body to follow the rules on wko isa jew. So they can try to be welcoming but can not consider a child with a non jewish mother as jewish unless there is a conversion. Nor can a Conservative rabbi even attend a mixed marriage.

Odd...I thought the only true requirement of the conservative bodies was paying dues and not poaching rabbis from other dues paying members.

And while some conservative rabbis won't conduct a mixed religious marriage based on their beliefs, there is no real bar to attending any event. The conservative movement encompasses a pretty broad spectrum of technical interpretations so you really need to meet with the individual rabbis to see where they fall.

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My family is a member of Oheb Shalom and has been since my child entered kindergarten b/c we needed a hebrew school. I feel that the hebrew school is excellent and very well-led (not my own childhood experience). We are a family of mixed ethnicity and my child has always been treated as part of the broader congregational family. The other thing I like about the shul is the many family-oriented events, including one-time the kids building a mini-Jerusalem out of Legos. . . the Men's club is really fun too.

AndrewL_0313 - We've been members of Beth El for about 10 years, and were members of Oheb Shalom for about 6 years before that. We love the Beth El community, which is growing rapidly, especially now with our new Rabbi, Jesse Olitzky (whose official installation is this upcoming Shabbat, November 22). Many of our newer members are families with young children, but we have a great mix in our very diverse, very welcoming, congregation. By all means come check us out, and feel free to reach out to our rabbi, president, board members etc. Our website is http://www.bethelnj.org and we're on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/BethElNJ.