Beth Am’s 50 years are part of a larger story. At its founding in 1974 Beth Am was moving against the tide. Jewish life seemed to be focused on moving to the suburbs. But in many cities across North America other congregations were making similar decisions to stay in the city.
These long established congregations that remained in their urban neighborhoods have been called “legacy congregations” because the original founders have passed them on to new generations of members, some with family connection to the founders and many others who have joined with them. Across North America, legacy congregations play an important role in anchoring urban Jewish life.
Over the past fifty years many, but not all, cities that were once losing population because of white flight and the decline of manufacturing have been gaining population as their economies have been transformed. Replacing manufacturing, these cities have thrived by growth in professional services – financial and legal services, hospitals and medical services, colleges and universities, technology clusters, government and cultural institutions. While we don’t have statistics on Jews who work in these professions, we do know from research that an estimated 28% of adult American Jews have advanced degrees – such as in law, medicine, and science – beyond the B.A.
As employment in professional services increased, Jews moved into urban neighborhoods closer to their places of employment. As in the case of Beth Am, where Baltimore’s medical, higher education, legal and governmental employment grew, mobile, highly educated Jews found a welcome in legacy congregations. In addition, Orthodox Jews value denser pedestrian scale neighborhoods. Natural increase from large Orthodox family size has contributed to the urban Jewish population. Adding to the urban mix have been Jewish university students and young adults who are not yet ready for the child-rearing amenities of the suburbs.
The legacy congregations that have welcomed the growing urban Jewish population come, as they say, in many shapes and sizes. Some legacy congregations, like Beth Am, conserve architecturally distinguished synagogue buildings, but others are in more modest, intimate settings. Most have a core of locals whose emotional attachments to a synagogue building or vision of a revived urban future ensured the congregation’s continuity, but some, almost abandoned and bankrupt, were saved by new members who built them up again.
Legacy congregations range across all varieties of Judaism: Conservative, Reform, Orthodox, Reconstructionist, Renewal, and so forth. Some legacy congregations are isolated and the only remaining Jewish institution in the neighborhood while others are part of an urban Jewish neighborhood cluster and benefit from being part of a local network.
Legacy congregations respond to the challenges and opportunities of city life. It is not surprising that their responses correspond to the values we call the Torah of Beth Am.
Kehillah– Sacred Community. Legacy congregation are places where veteran locals and mobile professionals participate in a culture of caring and sharing. For the many mobile newcomers who arrive without family ties, legacy congregation are places where they find welcoming personal relationships based on shared sacred values and traditions.
Tzedek – Social Justice. Legacy congregations are often in neighborhoods where income disparities and needs are apparent. They are always in cities with continuing daily concerns about a wide range of social justice issues. Through activities of service, advocacy and relational justice they join with others who work for a more fair and just society.
Makom – Connection to Place. Suburban congregations have typically been built on large tracts of land with a central multipurpose building surrounded by parking, playgrounds, athletic fields and landscaping. Urban legacy congregations in contrast are on the street and have been at the same address for many decades. Legacy congregations are proud of their buildings, rich with memories of congregational life. They are part of the neighborhood streetscape, not separated from it in isolating campuses. Inevitably, they engage with the neighborhood around them.
Amcha – Celebrating Diversity. In complex city environments with multiple races, cultures, ethnicities, income levels, gender identities and stages in life, people come to legacy congregations in many different ways. Legacy congregations, whether they come to this by design or by evolution, are diverse places that embrace and celebrate this diversity. They are microcosms of how the larger diverse society could be an inclusive community of common values and shared destiny.
Limud – Learning. For urban Jews, daily living in multicultural, multi-faith workplaces and neighborhoods means that living a Jewish life is always a choice. People come to legacy congregations to affirm, deepen and explore their connection to Jewish life. Legacy congregations engage in formal and informal life-long learning, often with experimental and innovative outreach programs.
Learn more: The Riverway Project of Temple Israel in Boston combines social justice, spirituality, and learning.
The geography of American Jewish life has changed in the past 50 years. In cities with thriving professional employment, Jews have stayed in some urban neighborhoods, revitalized others and moved into new ones. Legacy congregations have played a leading role supporting the continuity and development of urban Jewish life, and other Jewish institutions have followed.
When members of Beth Am visit other cities, they can find other legacy congregations, not exactly the same as Beth Am but each responding to the challenges and opportunities of their particular locations. And when members of other legacy congregations visit Beth Am, they find us familiar, comfortable and reassuring. We are unique, but not alone.
