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We Should Be Building More Jewish Institutions and Buildings — Not Downsizing Them
Rabbi Eli C. Freedman, Senior Rabbi Jill L. Maderer, and Cantor Bradley Hyman lead a service marking Erev Rosh Hashanah at Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, Sept. 6, 2021. REUTERS/Rachel Wisniewski
A few weeks ago, driving through West Philadelphia with my son, I pointed out the streets where my grandparents once lived and the places where an older generation of our family once belonged.
We ended up talking about my long-shuttered synagogue, Beth T’filah in Overbrook Park. It was a few-hundred-family, postwar shul — modest in scale, but central to the rhythms of Jewish life that shaped my childhood. Later that evening, wanting to show him what that world looked like, I searched online for old photographs.
What I found stunned and troubled me.
Despite being a student of history — Philadelphia history, specifically — I was unprepared for what appeared on my screen. Image after image of synagogues I had never even heard of: scattered throughout Strawberry Mansion, Logan, West Philadelphia, and Wynnefield Heights.
These weren’t simple storefront shuls. They were grand structures with limestone façades, soaring sanctuaries, and stained-glass windows that radiated pride. Community centers that once throbbed with life. Physical evidence of a Jewish world far deeper and more vibrant than I had ever understood; stories of families and countless lives lived mere miles from where I grew up, yet entirely unknown to me.
My son leaned over my shoulder, studying the images with urgent curiosity. “This was all here? We had this many synagogues?” he asked, scrolling through sanctuaries the size of concert halls.
He knows American Jewish life as something smaller, more cautious, more scattered. These images showed him — and reminded me — that we once built with astonishing boldness. That we were visible, rooted, unafraid.
Most of these buildings no longer house Jewish life. Many are churches now; others stand abandoned or have disappeared entirely. Hidden City Philadelphia’s haunting photographs of the last synagogues of Strawberry Mansion capture this painful truth: magnificent sanctuaries built for bustling communities now sit silent, their pasts forgotten by most who walk by.
This is not just Philadelphia’s story. The same pattern of memory and erasure appears in Detroit, St. Louis, Newark, Cleveland, Chicago, and dozens of other cities. Entire Jewish neighborhoods — once dense, spirited, and civically intertwined — have faded from view.
What They Built, and Why
It is worth remembering how and why these communities emerged. In the mid-20th century, Jewish families, many first- or second-generation Americans, moved to new neighborhoods seeking opportunity, safety, and stability. Veterans returned from war and built small businesses. Women organized sisterhoods and ran charity circles. Men’s clubs held debates, breakfasts, and social events. Hebrew schools, JCCs, Zionist youth groups, choirs, lecture series, and summer camps created the thick connective tissue of Jewish life. These weren’t simply clusters of Jewish families; they were ecosystems of belonging.
At the center of each ecosystem stood the synagogue – not just as a place to pray, but as a civic anchor: a social hub, a public square, a home for both the sacred and the ordinary. People went there for weekday minyanim and Hebrew school pickups, for community meetings and interfaith dialogues, for holiday carnivals and debates about Israel, for fundraisers and grief support. For everything. The synagogue was where American Jewish life displayed its fullness.
Our grandparents and their peers understood something we risk forgetting: Jewish life must be built. It does not survive on good intentions. It does not thrive on nostalgia. They had little money, limited political power, and uncertain futures; yet they erected schools before they had enough students, synagogues before they had enough members to fill the pews, and community centers before they knew how they would pay the heating bill. They assumed a Jewish future and constructed toward it.
The Danger of Our Caution
Today we are more cautious. We consolidate, close, downsize, and strategize. We measure risk before we imagine possibility. We worry about demographics and budgets and “market realities.” In an age of rising antisemitism, cultural erasure, and digital amnesia, the instinct to retreat has never been stronger or more dangerous.
When Jewish visibility shrinks, when communal footprints recede, when institutions atrophy, the void does not stay empty. Others fill it, often with hostility.
I understand the fear. Antisemitism is not theoretical, it’s spray-painted on our synagogues, screamed at our students, legislated in international forums. Jewish communities are smaller than they were. Intermarriage rates are high. Affiliation is down. These are facts, not talking points.
But here’s what else is true: dispersion makes us more vulnerable, not less. When Jews scatter, when we become invisible, when our institutions disappear, we don’t become safer – we become isolated targets. The antisemite doesn’t stop hating because the synagogue closed; he simply faces less organized resistance. A community that cannot gather cannot defend itself. A community without institutions cannot transmit its values, protect its members, or advocate for its interests.
Jewish survival has never been secured by retreat. It has always been secured by presence — visible, confident, communal presence. By building synagogues and schools and youth groups and cultural institutions. By creating Jewish spaces where identity is transmitted, where belonging is felt, where children grow up understanding that they are part of something larger and older and enduring. This is not recklessness. This is how minorities survive in hostile environments: through solidarity, visibility, and the infrastructure of mutual support.
What We Owe the Future
Driving through Philadelphia, I tried to convey this to my son: Jewish life is not something you simply inherit. It must be constructed, sustained, reinforced.
Our grandparents did not build out of sentimentality. They built out of responsibility, conviction, and love. They believed that their children and grandchildren would need places to pray, learn, gather, argue, celebrate, and mourn. They built because they believed Jewish life mattered in America and deserved permanence.
We need that mindset again; not as a wistful tribute to a vanished past, but as a practical and moral imperative. At a moment when antisemitism is resurgent and Jewish visibility is contested, we cannot afford minimalism. We should be founding more schools, not fewer. More synagogues, not fewer. More youth programs, more minyanim, more cultural centers, more visible Jewish infrastructure.
I know the objections. I’ve heard them all, often from people I respect.
“Those synagogues emptied out — why repeat the same mistakes?” We’re not talking about blind replication. We’re talking about recovering the audacity to build while learning from both successes and failures. The mid-century model had flaws — exclusivity, rigidity, the costs of suburbanization itself. But the alternative we’ve chosen — building little to nothing, consolidating endlessly — guarantees decline. You can’t iterate on what you refuse to create.
“Young Jews want something different — they’re not joiners, they want authenticity and flexibility.” Every generation believes it has invented a new kind of Judaism. Yes, forms must evolve. But the underlying need for physical Jewish space where real relationships form, where children absorb identity through presence and participation, where community becomes tangible — that need hasn’t changed. Digital community kept us connected during COVID, but you cannot transmit Jewish identity through a screen. You cannot raise Jewish children on Zoom.
“We can’t afford it — demographics are against us, costs are too high.” Our grandparents were poorer. They faced quotas, discrimination, and far more virulent antisemitism. They built anyway. Resource constraints are real, but they’re often cover for lack of will. And the math works in reverse: not building costs more. Every shuttered Hebrew school is a generation we fail to educate. Every consolidated synagogue is a neighborhood we abandon. Managed decline is still decline, just slower and more expensive.
“Consolidation is smart stewardship — better one strong institution than several struggling ones.” There’s a difference between strategic consolidation and institutional surrender dressed up as prudence. Yes, merge when it genuinely strengthens. But we’ve spent two decades consolidating, and Jewish life hasn’t gotten stronger — it’s gotten smaller, more distant, more fragile. At some point, “stewardship” becomes a euphemism for retreat.
The isolation crisis is real. American institutions of all kinds are weakening. Loneliness is epidemic. These are not reasons to build less — they are reasons to build more.
And it is happening. Despite the challenges, Jewish communities across North America are building. The Stanley I. Chera Sephardic Academy in Manhattan has grown from 20 preschool students in 2011 to 240 students through sixth grade in 2025, adding campuses and expanding rapidly.
New York Jewish day schools saw their largest single-year enrollment increase since 2020, growing by over 4,000 students in 2023-2024. Post-October 7, UJA-Federation of New York launched new subsidies responding to what they call “the surge” — a spike in demand for Jewish schools, camps, and synagogues. Eighteen synagogues across the United States are now operating or preparing Jewish after-school programs, serving nearly 300 students and growing. From Brooklyn to Los Angeles, independent minyanim continue to flourish, creating new models of engaged Jewish community for young adults.
These are not isolated examples — they represent a broader pattern of Jewish communities choosing to build rather than retreat.
The work begins with individual commitment and communal organization. Start by showing up. Attend that weekday minyan. Enroll your child in Hebrew school. Join the board of a struggling synagogue. Volunteer at the JCC. Donate to build, not just to maintain. Support new initiatives even when they feel risky. Push back against the reflex to consolidate and retreat. If your community lacks the institutions you want to see, gather a minyan of committed people and create them.
My son looked at those photographs with amazement, wondering how such a world could exist without him ever hearing about it. The truth is that the Jewish world he will inherit depends entirely on what we choose to build now.
Earlier generations left us institutions robust enough to carry us through a turbulent century. With far greater freedom and far more resources than they ever had, we have no excuse for shrinking our ambitions.
If they built so much with so little, then we — for our children and theirs — must do no less.
Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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The mayor missed the Israel Day Parade. Many who went didn’t miss him.
(JTA) — The energy was palpable Sunday as thousands packed a dozen blocks of Fifth Avenue waving Israeli flags for New York’s annual Israel Day Parade. Organizers said the turnout was the largest in the event’s six-decade history.
The procession featured its usual mix of Jewish nonprofits, schools and synagogues marching to blaring Israeli music alongside parade floats sponsored by groups including Nefesh B’Nefesh, the UJA Federation of New York and the Maccabiah Games.
But this year’s parade, which was themed “Proud Americans, Proud Zionists,” unfolded amid growing political polarization over Israel and without New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who became the first mayor in decades to skip the event.
For all the criticism Mamdani has received over his campaign pledge not to attend the event, many of those who did turn out told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency they were glad he wasn’t there.
“He doesn’t like us,” said Andrea Roman, who attended the parade wearing an Israeli flag cape and thought it was “good” that Mamdani hadn’t come. “Why should you be some place where you don’t like? He does not promote peace. This promotes peace, but of course he’s not going to be here.”
Jeremy Bell, 39, also said wasn’t bothered by the mayor’s absence – and that there were many more who felt as he did.
“I don’t think that he was really wanted here,” Bell said, adding, “I don’t want to be here with someone who doesn’t believe in our right to exist and obviously associates with people that don’t have our best interests in mind.”
Despite Mamdani’s absence, the event, known as the largest pro-Israel parade in the world, featured a lengthy roster of political officials and lawmakers. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, New York Attorney General Letitia James, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler were among those in attendance, as were former New York City Mayors Eric Adams and Mike Bloomberg.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who on Thursday said that security preparations for the parade would be “the most extensive” that the NYPD had ever put together, also joined the festivities as an honorary grand marshal.
While many paradegoers said that they never considered staying home because of security concerns, several said they appreciated the presence of thousands of police officers and extensive barricades that blocked the streets surrounding the event.
“We are grateful that tens of thousands of participants and spectators were able to gather safely and proudly in the heart of New York City,” Mitchell Silber, the CEO of the Community Security Initiative, said in a statement. “Today’s success reflects the extraordinary planning, coordination, and professionalism of the NYPD and our law enforcement partners.”
That number was boosted in some cases by participants who said the mayor’s decision to skip the event factored into their own decision to come.
Karene Hermon, 22, said that while previously she would have been more “neutral” about attending, hearing that Mamdani had chosen not to come drove her to “be with my people.”
“I think it sends the wrong message,” Hermon said of the mayor’s refusal to participate. “I think we’re trying to come together, not separate people, regardless of … how you feel about a cause.”
First-time paradegoer Luis Margules travelled to the march from Pennsylvania. He said that he had come because it felt like “a moment to be with Israel.”
“This is my first parade, but I think this year it’s one of the most important ones,” Margules said. “I think the world doesn’t understand the situation with Iran and the Palestinians, and everything is blamed on Israel.”
Ofir Akunis, the consul general of Israel in New York, said in a statement that the parade “delivered a resounding answer to all those who hate Israel.”
“This year’s parade was an unprecedented demonstration of strength by New York’s Jewish community and the people of Israel,” Akunis said. “It sends a clear and unequivocal message: We are here to stay, and we are not going anywhere.”
But not all of the spectators Sunday were there in support.
While there was no large-scale protest visible during the parade, roughly 25 people demonstrated along the route to oppose the inclusion of a record delegation of roughly 10 Israeli Knesset members, including far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and two members of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s ultra-nationalist Otzma Yehudit party.
As the delegation passed the demonstration, which was organized by the progressive groups Israelis for Peace and Friends of Standing Together New York, protesters shouted “shame” and “war criminals,” according to Tamar Glezerman, an organizer for Israelis for Peace.
“We were there to protest against the Israeli Knesset delegation, the largest of its size of all of the parades, that sent members of the coalition and the so-called opposition to do hasbara and march victoriously up a New York avenue,” Glezerman told JTA in a phone interview Sunday, using the Hebrew word for public relations.
While the focus of the demonstration centered on opposing the Knesset delegation, Glezerman added that “a parade that very much champions unexamined, unchecked and non-critical support of Israel is perhaps important for people here. It is not good for Israelis. It sure as hell isn’t good for Palestinians.”
Margules, in contrast, said that seeing the Israeli Knesset members pass by had made him feel “proud.”
“It’s good to know that even in these dark times we can still be together without violence, and we can disagree on many things, but we have to agree on something,” Margules said. “We are here because Israel exists.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post The mayor missed the Israel Day Parade. Many who went didn’t miss him. appeared first on The Forward.
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NY Democratic stalwarts show support for Israel even as Mamdani skips parade
(JTA) — Hundreds of Jewish leaders and New York politicians gathered early Sunday morning ahead of the annual Israel Day Parade to voice their support for the Jewish state, even as anti-Israel rhetoric has proliferated in elections across the United States.
“I stand before you as a proud Jew and a proud Zionist, and those of us who feel that way can never waver,” Rep. Dan Goldman, who is trailing primary challenger Brad Lander in the polls, said to a chorus of cheers. “It should not be momentous to say that, but unfortunately, in many ways, today it is.”
The annual pre-parade breakfast included a demonstration by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul of state power that will better defend Jewish institutions from anti-Israel protests that critics say have at times veered into antisemitism.
Sitting on stage at a desk flanked by a host of New York elected officials and Jewish nonprofit leaders, Hochul signed a statewide law establishing a 50-foot security “buffer zone” around houses of worship. The legislation is more expansive than a city-level law insulating houses of worship from protests that was passed without New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s signature and was watered down after he expressed concerns about the bill.
Mamdani declined to participate in Sunday’s parade.
“We will not just march today in an act of defiance against those who say we have no right, we’ll also sign legislation that says no, we have the power, we have leaders in government who can make changes happen,” Hochul said.
Hochul, who is running for reelection, was not the only non-Jewish politician to join the pre-parade event hosted by the Met Council, a Jewish-run antipoverty nonprofit. Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James and Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, both of whom are also running for reelection, spoke at the event.
James vowed that “antisemitism will not be tolerated in the state of New York as long as I am the attorney general.” She added, “It is not just the responsibility of the Jewish community to respond, it requires all of us to respond. To stand shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm with the Jewish community.”
Lawler took aim at antisemitism on the political left and right during his remarks, calling out Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Candace Owens and Hasan Piker by name.
“It is imperative, as elected officials, and there are a lot of elected officials in the room today, not just to be here, not just to say that we support a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, not just to speak out against antisemitism, but to root it out, to root it out by exposing the people in our own parties,” Lawler said.
Eric Goldstein, the outgoing CEO of the UJA-Federation of New York, thanked the public officials who showed up for joining in the Israel parade. He stressed, “We need to be open and public at this apolitical gathering to show our love for the one and only Jewish homeland.”
Mamdani’s refusal to participate, in contrast, has drawn condemnation from many Jewish leaders. Goldstein issued a scathing condemnation on Friday, writing in an open letter that the mayor’s absence is “simply the latest in a pattern of demonizing anti-Israel rhetoric and actions that continue to place the Jewish community of New York at greater risk.”
“Mr. Mayor, you cannot close your eyes to the deadly impact of this incendiary rhetoric that is playing out in Jewish communities across the world, from Bondi Beach to Boulder to Washington, D.C.,” Goldstein wrote.
Later Sunday morning, the organizer of the parade said that what really counted was those who did choose to come.
“Let’s give it up for all of our allies and supporters who are here, because that’s what matters, those who actually do show up,” Mark Treyger, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, which organizes the parade, told the crowd as Jewish leaders and politicians gathered on a podium overlooking the parade route on Fifth Avenue.
“We march because of our unwavering, unflinching connection to the Jewish State of Israel,” he declared.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also gave remarks from the podium before politicians including Hochul, James and New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin began marching down Fifth Ave to speakers blaring Israeli music.
“The Jewish people have yearned for a state of Israel, whilst experiencing the constant anxiety of knowing the place where they live could violently expel them at any moment, as happened again and again,” Schumer said. “We cannot, we must not go back to that era. I believe in the State of Israel. I support the State of Israel.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post NY Democratic stalwarts show support for Israel even as Mamdani skips parade appeared first on The Forward.
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For the first time, a kosher restaurant has won a Michelin star
(JTA) — As golden confetti rained down around him Thursday, Israeli chef Raz Shabtai broke down in tears and was embraced by his cheering staff.
Moments earlier, a livestreamed Michelin ceremony had announced that his Miami restaurant, Mutra, had become the first kosher restaurant ever awarded a Michelin star, long regarded as the highest honor in the restaurant industry.
“It’s a moment of joy, it’s a moment of pride, it’s a moment of relief, it’s a moment of confirmation,” Shabtai told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency Friday. “It’s not just about Mustra getting that star, but it’s about the entire Jewish community getting that, and I felt a lot of responsibility.”
Shabtai, who has worked in kitchens across New York and Israel, opened Mutra in February 2025, naming the kosher eatery after his Jerusalem-born grandmother whose cooking he said heavily inspires its menu.
“I really like to call the restaurant Jerusalem cuisine versus Mediterranean and Middle Eastern or Israeli or stuff like that, because the flavors that I’m trying to bring to the table, it’s flavors that came from memories and visiting in the market with my grandma,” Shabtai said. “I have to be very loyal to what my grandma fed me.”
A description of Mutra on the Michelin website praised the restaurant’s “show-stopping plate of beets in a pool of ajo blanco and topped with beetroot sorbet” and “signature lamb kebab with smoked aubergine cream and tomato oil.”
“Israeli Chef Raz Shabtai has brought his take on Middle Eastern cuisine to Miami,” the Michelin inspectors wrote. “Named for his grandmother, this is a place where snagging a seat at the chef’s counter is a must.”
The award places Mutra among the world’s most celebrated restaurants and marks a breakthrough for kosher cuisine, which operates under strict dietary rules. For Shabtai, who has kept kosher for more than a decade, the award proved that culinary excellence can thrive under those constraints.
“Kosher is a beautiful spiritual way of me to bond with God, and the limitation that he gave me, but yet to do amazing good food that everybody can eat,” Shabtai said.
The recognition arrived after months of suspense. Shabtai said that Michelin inspectors visited the restaurant several times before sending an email in February requesting information and photos about the establishment, a sign he said alerted them that they were under consideration.
For Noa Figari, Mutra’s director of operations who joined the team after first working as Shabtai’s real estate agent to find the Miami location, the announcement Thursday was a “release.”
“All the hard work that we put has been, you know, validated,” Figari said. “We carry a responsibility not only just for Raz’s cuisine, but for the whole entire Jewish community and kosher world we made history.”
Looking ahead, Shabtai said he hoped the achievement would inspire other kosher chefs.
“Be proud of where you’re coming from, get connected to those roots that you have,” Shabtai said. “Sometimes it’s not going to be a smooth sail. It’s okay, learn how to fix it, but believe in yourself. Don’t ever compromise, and don’t let other people compromise you.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post For the first time, a kosher restaurant has won a Michelin star appeared first on The Forward.