Start-Up Shul: How to build a welcoming kehillah

Photo: Daniel Landesman

The first Shabbos after October 7, our young two-year-old shul, the Altneu on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, was still renting spaces—we were at the Pierre Hotel ballroom that dark, dark Shabbos.

The previous two days our phones had been alit with conspiracies about a day of rage. Notices about security and terror threats were bombarding us. Many yeshivas had closed their doors or hired additional security teams to mitigate threats. Friday afternoon, the community chat groups were buzzing with discussions about whether to go to shul or not.

But the next morning, everyone showed up.

In that massive, illuminated ballroom, it was standing room only, and how the tears flowed. It was not what we had expected. Jews of all kinds of observance, from all over Manhattan, had made their trek to 61st Street and Fifth Avenue—they needed to be together. They were searching for answers, for a community that gave them soul, uplift.

On the ground, in our community work, we are seeing a tidal shift in Jewish awakening. Every week, we meet Jews who come searching. Jews who didn’t identify strongly before, didn’t make an effort to go to synagogue or connect with a community before, but were shaken awake after October 7. It is an honor to be there for them when they come searching.

There are a few guiding ideas that we have tried to keep in mind as we built our kehillah:

1. Welcoming culture: Many Manhattan shuls struggle with culture—there is legacy, there is hierarchy, where only the wealthier, older donors are given honors, where newcomers are ignored or not taken seriously. One of the benefits of a start-up shul is that we could create culture from the ground up. Everyone was new! And that created an unusually warm environment across the board, where it was absolutely normal for someone to walk over to a new face and ask her who she is and where she is from. That is one of the most common comments we get when we ask about people’s experience in shul—it is the smallest gestures of kindness that can have the greatest impact on others.

The Altneu Synagogue hosting a Purim event. Photo: Eli Weintraub

2. Keep it focused on Torah: Many shuls cast a wide programming net, in a desperate attempt to bring people in to fill its halls. This often means relying on politicians and organization leaders, which we believe is a critical mistake. People are coming to shul as a sanctuary away from the world, from the news, from “the issues.” Shul is not the place where we have those conversations. We keep that kind of content to an absolute minimum—and only bring in the most excellent of speakers on these subjects—focusing our efforts instead on Torah that is inspirational, accessible and challenging all at once.

3. Women matter: Oftentimes, 50 percent of Orthodox shuls’ members are not seen. It is critical that shuls take women’s experiences seriously, not simply by providing an occasional challah bake or flower arrangements event but offering real Torah study and lay leadership opportunities. Often we are asked, “How did you create a shul that’s so buzzing?” Well, we try to build a space that speaks to the next generation of young women, not only men. (And guess who shows up if young women are coming to shul? Young men! It’s the 21st-century version of Jerusalem’s fields on Tu b’Av.)

4. Peoplehood is not enough to keep people connected. After October 7, there was a groundswell of searching, but “Jewish identity” programming—that flies many blue and white flags but often lacks substance—won’t be enough to keep people connected sustainably for a long time. Consider, lehavdil, the traumas of the Holocaust: Memory of that dark era worked for one generation, possibly two, to keep the young connected, but in Manhattan we unfortunately see many grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Holocaust survivors unmoored; the commandment to “marry Jewish and have Jewish kids to spite Hitler” was not enough to keep them close decades later. Let us not allow trauma to define us, as tempting as it may be. The answer lies, to our minds, in the challenges of daily observance, in regular practice and in leading lives inspired by the study of text.

These are some of the lessons we have gathered from building the Altneu, a most humbling and demanding journey—and we hope to only continue learning and improving our service.

Often, we hear triumphalism in the enclaves of the frum community, a rugged sense of confidence: We have the answers! We know what’s the “true way”! How blessed we are!

Post-October 7, as Jews both unaffiliated and cynical search for answers, we think it’s time for the Orthodox community to double down on meaningful outreach, on sharing the blessing of our traditions with others. The need is so heavy; it is overwhelming at times.

This kind of outreach requires mind, heart and soul all at once—intelligence, kindness and inspiration—done with the deepest humility. Let us answer the call of this moment, together.

Rabbi Benjamin and Avital Goldschmidt are the founders of the Altneu Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Rabbi Benjamin Goldschmidt studied in Bnei Brak’s Ponevezh Yeshiva, Jerusalem’s Chevron Yeshiva, Beth Medrash Govoha of Lakewood, New Jersey, and Yeshivas Ohr Reuven in Suffern, New York. Rabbi Goldschmidt’s work has appeared in the New York Times, Haaretz and Mishpacha, among others. Avital is a writer as well as the news editor at The Real Deal; her work as appeared in the Atlantic and the New York Times, among others.