Living Together in Linden: Andy and Samantha Van Houter

Andy and Samantha Van Houter, who moved to Linden in 2009, have never shied away from rolling up their sleeves when needed. Courtesy of Samantha Van Houten

On paper, it could be the plot of an Israeli sitcom—a Jewish community that is home to two distinct populations—one Modern Orthodox and the other Chassidic. But far from being a modern-day remake of The Odd Couple, that atypical scenario is a reality in Linden, New Jersey, with members of both groups demonstrating daily what it means to put the “unity” back in “community.”

Linden’s Orthodox presence dates back 111 years, but by the time Andy and Samantha Van Houter moved to the city in 2009, it was clear that the community was petering out. The local shul, Congregation Anshe Chesed, had gone from being packed to the rafters to having to hire someone to say Kaddish, and it was clear to shul officials that young blood was needed to revitalize the community.

Reinventing a Community

The Van Houters were drawn to Linden in the early days of their marriage because of its easy commute to their respective schools—a short fifteen-minute drive from Andy’s law school in Newark, and a modest thirty-minute train ride from Samantha’s occupational therapy program in Manhattan. At the time, it was far from an established community—when Andy and Samantha made a pilot visit to Linden on Shabbat Hagadol, there were just eleven Modern Orthodox couples living there.

“It was nice, but we left thinking, ‘Nah, this isn’t for us,’” recalls Andy.

At Congregation Anshe Chesed in Linden, New Jersey, there’s a siddur for every nusach and every language.

The Van Houters changed their minds after stumbling across a three-bedroom apartment with a living room, dining room and separate eat-in kitchen, and a monthly rent of $1,575, all utilities included. Packing their bags, they moved across the Arthur Kill to Linden, and despite being just twenty-two years old, Andy suddenly found himself sitting on Anshe Chesed’s Board of Directors.

“They were very accepting of young people, as opposed to other places which never let young people get involved,” notes Samantha.

Other than Anshe Chesed, which was home to the more right-wing Yeshiva Gedolah Zichron Leyma at the time, Linden didn’t have much of an infrastructure in place, and residents took advantage of the resources in Elizabeth, where yeshivahs, pizza and kosher food were just a short drive away. Linden’s relative proximity to other established Jewish communities including Passaic, Hillside, Springfield and Livingston, meant that its Jewish residents had no problem supplementing the offerings that existed in their local ShopRite, Trader Joe’s, Walmart and other stores. Still, it was clear that if it wanted to attract Orthodox couples, Linden needed a mikveh of its own, and a fundraising campaign was launched. The Ziga Roshanski Mikvah opened in 2015, and with real estate prices still relatively low, Linden’s shomer Shabbat population trended upward in the years that followed.

“We grew to about fifty families at one point, with 100 kids under the age of ten in our shul,” says Andy.

Changing Faces, Sharing Spaces

But by 2020, Linden’s steady growth had slowed. The pandemic had some community residents re-evaluating their lives and choosing to move elsewhere, while an influx of Chassidim was welcomed. Winds of change continued to blow in Linden in 2021, where within days of Andy becoming president of Anshe Chesed, the shul’s long-term rabbi left to take another position. Andy rolled with the punches, and as the pandemic began fading away, Anshe Chesed hired Rabbi Yossi Katz as its new rabbi.

“We got people to come back and to give up their house minyanim,” remembers Andy, adding, “We had equilibrium, and we knew we had to build back better.”

Even as Anshe Chesed continued to reestablish its footing, Andy understood that the shul property held the key to its success. Finding a tenant to take over the space that had been previously occupied by the yeshivah became his top priority as president. With multiple groups of Chassidim looking for a space of their own, Andy was soon able to cross that item off his to-do list.

“We took the one who gave us the most financial guarantees,” explains Andy. “They put more than $2 million into the building, and the rent they pay each month keeps us from having to dip into our reserves. We now make a profit every year.”

When a long-time community member passed away and left Anshe Chesed a sizable amount of money, the shul embarked on a capital campaign, first building a large beit midrash and then renovating its ballroom. With a capacity of 400 people, an expansive meat kitchen, and a later-donated new dairy kitchen, Anshe Chesed became the place to make a simchah, and not only for Linden residents.

“Our neighboring communities have a lot of people, but no building that can house a crowd that size, other than a school gym, so they make their simchahs here,” says Andy. “It has become an important source of income for us.”

While cultural differences can sometimes spark tensions in Jewish communities that are home to different groups, Linden is that rare place where everyone gets along. Linden’s Chassidic residents have added tremendously to the local infrastructure, starting branches of Hatzalah and Chaverim and opening eateries, while the city’s Modern Orthodox community has been happy to share its facilities and its connections with local officials.

“We don’t butt heads with them at all,” says Andy. “We work together, and when they have a big event, Rabbi Katz and I go, and they seat us on the dais.”

Bonds between Linden’s Modern Orthodox and Chassidic communities go beyond the superficial, and when Samantha was sitting shivah, she was touched to receive a personal visit from the wife of the Kossoner Rebbe, who has been living in Linden since 2017.

“I don’t think that this type of relationship between Modern Orthodox and Chassidic Jews exists anywhere else,” observes Samantha. “We had a speaker once from Israel who talks about how communities should be united and how you shouldn’t judge your neighbors. She said that this was the first place where she actually saw that happening.”

Similarly, the community holds a challah bake each year as a zechut for a local boy who suffers from a rare form of cancer. All the women in Linden come, with heimish pre-sifted flour to accommodate the Chassidic contingent and ShopRite-brand flour with a regular hechsher for everyone else. A Shabbat afternoon visit to the park is further proof of the rare achdut that permeates Linden, where no matter where people come from or what nusach they daven, local moms are standing side by side shmoozing as they push their kids on the swings.

“At the end of the day, we might do things a little differently, but we all have the same things going on in our lives,” explains Anshe Chesed’s Rebbetzin Emma Katz.

Both segments of Linden’s Jewish community have tremendous respect for each other and are well aware that their commonalities are far more numerous than their differences.

“There are things you don’t know about people unless you live with them,” observes Rebbetzin Katz. “They joke that we taught them how to be on time, and they taught us how to be more heimish about it. There is a vibrancy here as we live together and learn from each other.”

That level of acceptance isn’t just something that exists between Linden’s Modern Orthodox and Chassidic residents. Walk into Anshe Chesed, and you can find a siddur for every nusach and language, with both yarmulkas and doilies available for those in need of a head covering. That same warmth extends to the weekly kiddush, which can last two hours as community members enjoy each other’s company. Seniors who live alone often attend Anshe Chesed’s kids’ events, pitching in as staff members, instead of feeling excluded.

“We take people where they are—religious, not religious,” says Rabbi Katz. “Everyone is welcome here and everyone has a place.”

Making It Work

Many of Anshe Chesed’s older members still recall Rabbi Steven Dworken, the legendary rav who led the shul from 1977 until his retirement from the pulpit in 1999, passing away just four years later at the age of fifty-eight. Rabbi Dworken’s sensitivity, empathy and genuine concern for all members of Klal Yisrael helped build a cohesive, growing Jewish community, laying the groundwork for the Linden that exists today.

“I don’t think that this type of relationship between Modern Orthodox and Chassidic Jews exists anywhere else.”

Still, life in Linden isn’t without its challenges. The previously cordial relationship between the Jewish community and city officials seems to have cooled, with Mayor Derek Armstead sued in 2024 after a recording surfaced of him saying that he wanted to “save our community” from “being taken over by guys with big hats and curls,” a remark that he ultimately apologized for but insisted was not antisemitic.

Things quickly went from bad to worse. While Linden’s zoning laws hadn’t been changed in years, city officials created restrictions that made Linden less hospitable to those with large families. In addition to outlawing basement kitchens, bedrooms or bathrooms, the new ordinances specified where in homes bedrooms could be located, and prevented residents from putting up extensions or finishing their garages. Basement ceilings were suddenly limited to a height of no more than six feet, while the number of required parking spots per home increased to an amount that couldn’t possibly fit on existing driveways, ensuring that garages were being used to house cars and nothing else. Adding insult to injury, the required minimum lot size for houses of worship was increased from 25,000 square feet to 75,000 and then finally to 90,000. With no lots of that size available in Linden’s residential areas, and another ordinance prohibiting combining lots, the city effectively barred the construction of any new shuls.

Even as what is likely to be a legal battle with city officials continues to unfold, Linden’s Jewish community remains on an upward trajectory. Housing prices have gone up as the community has been reinvigorated, and with many available properties selling before they officially hit the market, finding a place to live can be tough.

Socialization, however, can be tough for kids who go to school in one place and live in another, a reality that often precludes Shabbat afternoon play dates, say Andy and Samantha who are the parents of three sons, ages thirteen, eleven and six.

“Still, everybody actually plays with each other here, and it doesn’t matter what school you go to or how old you are,” says Andy. “Our kids’ school friends love coming here because of the freedom, the environment and the parks.”

The language barrier can be a huge obstacle when it comes to getting Linden’s Modern Orthodox kids together with their Chassidic peers, particularly at the younger ages.

“We do encourage them to play together,” says Andy. “Sometimes my son takes another kid who speaks Yiddish with him, and they all play basketball together.”

But those downsides pale by comparison to the positives of living in Linden, say the Van Houters. Anshei Chesed’s membership of 116 (both families and singles) includes thirty young Modern Orthodox families, and as the shul recently held a “Discover Linden” Shabbaton, that number is likely to grow higher.

“Nobody falls through the cracks here,” notes Samantha. “Everyone knows your name, your mother, your father and your grandmother’s dog. You fit in. You find your people. And you feel at home and find the warmth and the unity.”

Building a community is hard work, and over the years, Andy and the rest of the Anshei Chesed Board have tried various incentives to attract prospective community members, with mixed results. People who moved in simply to take advantage of monetary offers aren’t necessarily community-minded, and while those opportunities do exist, Anshe Chesed has been focusing more on leadership grants, which can total as much as $10,000 per year for a family’s first five years in Linden.

“We are looking to hire youth directors, ba’alei keriah, ba’alei tefillah, people who can give back to the community and be on committees,” explains Andy, who stepped in to read the Torah during the pandemic because, while he isn’t a ba’al korei, it was a job that needed to get done. “We are looking for people who will be community leaders, as opposed to people who might just move in and not be involved.”

Both Andy and Samantha are no strangers to rolling up their sleeves when needed, and Rabbi Katz describes them as the glue that holds the community together. Rabbi Katz noted how Andy became a driving force behind Linden’s mikveh—explaining its importance to older non-observant members who questioned its relevance; he also jokingly describes Samantha as the community’s unofficial mayor.

“Whether it is the daily running of the mikveh or overseeing the shul dinner, she is the one making it happen,” says Rabbi Katz. “She is the lay person par excellence, rolling up her sleeves and getting down into the weeds to get things done.”

The Van Houters’ level of commitment isn’t universal.

“Young people have no comprehension about what it means to build a community,” says Samantha. “When you come from very populated places, everything is done for you, so you don’t see the need to pitch in. Since we both came from smaller communities, we recognize the need.”

“You have to realize that if you want to make a difference, you have to go beyond your comfort zone,” says Andy. “The community has to be able to provide services, no matter what, and if there’s no one there do to it, you have to be the one stepping up to the plate.”

Sandy Eller is a freelance writer who writes for print and web media outlets, as well as private clients.