Press

Kehillah serves new niche

by Leisah Woldoff

The mutual desire to create a spiritual community of caring Jews has spurred a group of individuals to form Kehillah of Arizona.

The founders, "tired of the same old things that have been reinvented time after time in the Valley," wanted to develop a group focused on Torah study and social action, said President Bob Liebman. Earlier this year, Liebman and seven others "came up with 18 core values that reflect our goals and hopes and dreams for the group."

The core values include tikkun olam (repairing the world), pursuing social justice, lifelong learning, supporting Israel, living Jewishly and cultivating spiritual development.

"It's a spiritual community with a very clear mission," said Rabbi Bonnie Sharfman, the group's spiritual leader. "Everyone works, everyone contributes in their own way. There's a real feeling of community."

No membership is required, and the founders stress that the goal is not to build a synagogue. "We are definitely not trying to recruit members from other shuls," Liebman said.

Some participants are affiliated with local synagogues, and "it's not part of our mission to offer a full range of services," Sharfman said.

Shabbat services are held the first Friday evening of each month, and a Shabbat morning Torah study session is held the third Saturday of each month. The first service was held in February; about 90 people attended the May 2 service, Sharfman said. Plans for the fall include a rabbi's tisch, which will feature learning, singing and eating together on a Shabbat afternoon, and High Holiday services.

Services with Kehillah of Arizona are highly participatory and include lots of singing, Liebman said. Social justice projects have included volunteer work with the Paradise Valley Emergency Food Bank and the Arizona Animal Welfare League.

Liebman, who has lived in the Valley for more than 30 years and has been involved in synagogue life, said Kehillah of Arizona "serves that niche that I'm looking for ... something that's new and exciting and different."

Sharfman, whose leadership roles in the Valley have included head of school for Pardes Jewish Day School, director of education for Temple Solel, Solel rabbinic intern and Temple Kol Ami assistant rabbi, noted that this type of community is part of a recent trend in the American Jewish community: "People who want to be in a community together (and who) want to learn and grow together."

A 2007 study looked at the rise of more than 80 independent minyans, rabbi-led prayer communities and other alternative spiritual communities across the United States and Canada.

The 2007 Spiritual Communities Study, conducted by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion sociologist Steven Cohen on behalf of the S3K Synagogue Studies Institute and Mechon Hadar, is based on 1,354 responses to a Web survey posted last summer.

Members of The New Shul, a traditional-egalitarian synagogue in Scottsdale led by rabbis Michael Wasserman and Elana Kanter, participated in that study.

Shawn Landres, research director at Synagogue 3000, an organization working to transform synagogues, said he "wasn't surprised" at the rapid growth of the emergent communities.

"The Internet and Web technology, and the low cost of overhead, makes it very easy for a small number of people to get together regularly for worship," he said.

What did surprise him is how few of these efforts had failed - just 20 in the past decade.

"That's an incredible success rate," he said. "It shows that communal spirituality is alive and well in American Jewish life."

More than 95 percent of the people surveyed have been to each other's homes for a Shabbat meal, a statistic that Elie Kaunfer, a founder of New York's Kehilat Hadar, one of the first independent minyans, found "particularly striking."

This communal involvement, and the participants' high levels of Hebrew and Jewish literacy, is the result of years spent in day schools, summer camps, Hillels and Israel programs. It shows that the Jewish community is "seeing the fruits of its communal investment" in those institutions, Kaunfer said.

But instead of joining the organized synagogue world, he continued, "after going through all those institutions, these young Jews are saying, 'I need to create something on my own.'"

Sue Fishkoff of JTA contributed to this report. For results of The 2007 Spiritual Communities Study, visit jewishemergent.org/survey.