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Many smaller NYC congregations rent their space. As real estate prices soar, how do they find a home?
(JTA) — When Rabbi Adam Mintz’s Modern Orthodox congregation was first looking for a space on the Upper West Side, finding one that worked was no simple task.
Kehilat Rayim Ahuvim, the fledgling congregation, didn’t have the resources — i.e. tens of millions of dollars — to buy a property and develop their own building, so the plan was to rent.
But renting space for a congregation comes with very specific needs.
They needed a room that could fit the entire congregation, which would typically draw 50 to 80 people for services. There had to be a second space for kiddush lunch after Saturday mornings. The building needed to be on the Upper West Side, where its congregants, who’d broken off from Lincoln Square Synagogue following a lay leadership dispute, lived and could walk to synagogue. Perhaps most importantly, the space needed to be available for them on Friday nights and Saturdays, plus the major Jewish holidays.
And all this in the Manhattan real estate market.
Finally, after a months-long search, Mintz, on the advice of a congregant, found a spot that checked all those boxes, housed inside the National Council of Jewish Women’s building on West 72nd Street.
“God was smiling at us one day,” Mintz said in an interview.
“You can’t go on StreetEasy and find a synagogue space exactly as you want it,” Mintz said. “And that space on 72nd Street, I guess we walked past it every day. But it took somebody — one of our members had this amazing idea.”
Mintz said the arrangement was a win-win. For Mintz, his congregation had a place to meet while paying below market rate. Meanwhile, the NCJW was now benefiting from a new stream of income while housing a Jewish group, a partnership which Mintz said “strengthened the Jewish community.”
That search was just one example of the effort — and creativity — required to secure a space to congregate in New York City and solve the “edifice complex,” as Mintz refers to it.
“As real estate prices have gone sky high, New York City — and especially Manhattan — congregations have had to get creative,” said David Kaufman, author of “Shul with a Pool.”
Kaufman has written extensively on the history of American synagogues, including the entry for synagogues in Kenneth Jackson’s “Encyclopedia of New York City.” In that entry, Kaufman segmented the history of the city’s synagogues into four phases — the latest of which, starting around 2000, details the challenge of finding space as rents have skyrocketed.
“In my early years, the ‘70s and ‘80s, New York was not like that,” Kaufman said. “Rent was not astronomical and you could find premises for various purposes. Nowadays it’s nearly impossible.”
Congregations have indeed gotten creative, leasing from a variety of properties that moonlight as synagogues. A “shul community” called Kehillat Harlem rents out a storefront property on Harlem’s Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard. Modern Orthodox synagogue Prospect Heights Shul is housed in Luria Academy, a Jewish school in Brooklyn.
But even after a congregation secures a space, it is not necessarily out of the woods.
Independent minyan Darkhei Noam had been renting from Manhattan Country School on the Upper West Side since 2017. Its lease at MCS was set to expire in 2034 — but when the school went bankrupt this summer, the congregation was left scrambling for a new home.
Similarly, the Fort Tryon Jewish Center has been renting from the Fort Washington Collegiate Church in Upper Manhattan, but the church’s closure is forcing them out at the end of December, according to an email sent to their mailing list.
Paul Wachtel, the former co-chair of Darkhei Noam’s board who was involved in their building search, said it was “very difficult to find a place.” The cost of renting property can be prohibitive for a congregation that only uses the space a few times per week, he said.
“We need a space for all the Jewish occasions and events, but it would be impossible to buy and difficult to rent unless we have a partner who would make use of it at other times during the week, like an educational institution,” Wachtel said in an interview during the search. That search recently concluded — for now — when Darkhei Noam came to a one-year lease agreement with the Trevor Day School.
Mintz said he believes the optimal model is to rent space from a large Jewish organization’s building. He stuck to that model earlier in September when his congregation moved, after 21 years at NCJW, into the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, rebranding as the Shtiebel @ JCC.
Mintz said he was excited by the move, for starters, because the congregation would be moving into “probably the busiest Jewish building in Manhattan.” (Mintz had long wanted to move into the JCC; things were finally set in motion after KRA held a service there last year, which served as something of a trial run, while its own air conditioning was broken.)
About a month into the relocation, Mintz said the Shtiebel @ JCC has been successful, with new people “from the community and people connected through JCC” joining services every week. His congregation is also planning to use the JCC’s rooftop sukkah.
But Mintz said this model — renting space from a Jewish organization — goes beyond just the JCC, and that he’d like to see it “replicated everywhere.” He added that big synagogues often rent out their spaces to non-Jewish organizations between services, and could do so with smaller Jewish nonprofits in mind.
“Whether it’s synagogues looking to find space in Jewish buildings, or big synagogues looking to rent [out] space to Jewish things — and nothing wrong with the non-Jewish things — but I think within the community, it only strengthens the community,” he said.
Kaufman said he hadn’t seen much precedent for the concept of a congregation leasing space from a Jewish community hub.
There are examples, Kaufman said, of congregations that were formed within organizations, such as at the Educational Alliance (originally called the Hebrew Institute) and the former Young Women’s Hebrew Association building on 110th Street.
“But in none of these cases is it another congregation that moves into and takes over space in one of those buildings,” Kaufman said. “So that is new to me.”
UJA-Federation of New York, the city’s largest Jewish organization, “regularly gives space to community organizations — including synagogues — for a wide variety of events and activities in our building,” public relations director Emily Kutner said by email. But she said that until now, “We have not been approached by a congregation to hold services in our building.”
Other Jewish organizations have been approached, and have rented out their space.
Temple Emanu-El’s downtown campus moved last year into the Center for Jewish History’s building. Executive director Dina Mann said the search involved looking at “dozens” of commercial spaces and reaching out to other “mission-aligned” nonprofits and museums that “could have had spaces.”
“I think having a similar sensibility about how to approach different aspects of Jewish community and life in New York is helpful. Specifically around security,” she said.
Another perk of being in the building, Mann added, is that “our religious school kids get exposed to different aspects of Jewish history.”
Rabbi Jonathan Leener, who leads Prospect Heights Shul, said the synagogue’s partnership with Luria Academy has opened up new opportunities in jointly applying for grants.
“It made sense to be like, ‘Wow, we could split this,’ and working really together to take advantage of what’s out there,” Leener said. “We’re hoping that some of the larger foundations and philanthropists are attracted by this model of Jewish community, of working together.”
As congregations like the Fort Tryon Jewish Center continue searching for a home, Mintz said he’d love to see a fund that incentivizes Jewish partnerships by kicking money to both the hosting and renting organizations. Some congregations face more obstacles with this model than others; FTJC, for example, serves the community of Washington Heights, which lacks Jewish organizations that could house tenants.
Still, for congregations that are walking distance from those organizations, Mintz said he believes these partnerships could be fruitful for all.
“It’s such an important real estate model, and we don’t utilize our real estate properly,” Mintz said.
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Jewish Democrats back Michigan AG Dana Nessel’s decision to skip state party convention
(JTA) — Local and national Jewish Democrats say they are sympathetic after Michigan’s Jewish attorney general, Dana Nessel, said she would skip the state Democratic Party’s nominating convention over concerns about antisemitism and harassment.
“I don’t blame AG Nessel for not wanting to go and basically put herself in situations that feel untenable in this moment of time and don’t add any value politically, personally,” Jessica “Decky” Alexander, the Michigan Jewish Democratic caucus chair, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday.
Alexander’s comment came a day after Nessel announced during a televised antisemitism roundtable that she would be skipping the convention next month, where party leaders will finalize the state’s Democratic candidate for Senate following a divisive primary that has focused in part on Israel and antisemitism.
“I don’t feel safe going. I feel like my presence isn’t going to be welcome. I don’t want to get chased around. I don’t want to get harassed. I don’t want to get yelled and screamed at. I don’t want to get booed off the stage, irrespective of what I’m saying,” Nessel said during the roundtable. “And I believe that if I go, that is what will happen because it’s been happening to me.”
She said she had filed a formal complaint within the party about a party official who had called her a neo-Nazi because of her beliefs. “Why is this person more accepted in our party than me?” she asked without naming the official. Her office responded to a request for comment by referring to the recorded livestream of the antisemitism roundtable.
Nessel’s declaration comes in the final days of the primary between Rep. Haley Stevens, a pro-Israel stalwart, and Abdul El-Sayed, a democratic socialist who is deeply critical of Israel. El-Sayed is surging in polls despite a reported $30 million spent against him by AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, and its supporters, whom he has made a target of criticism from the campaign trail.
Nessel’s comments also follow turmoil at the Michigan Democratic Party’s endorsement convention in April, where Stevens was booed by attendees. A third primary candidate who later dropped out of the race, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, said a convention attendee had targeted her Jewish husband with an antisemitic slur.
The incident has fueled alarm among Jewish Democrats, according to Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
“She’s not alone,” Soifer told JTA about Nessel on Friday. “We’ve heard from other Jewish Democrats who attended the Democratic Party convention earlier this year in Michigan, and there was a sense of discomfort amid what felt like a pro-Palestinian protest [that] may have even blurred the line for some into antisemitic sentiment — and it’s really concerning.”
Nessel has raised the alarm about antisemitism within the party for years, alleging in 2024 that Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a prominent pro-Palestinian voice, had been antisemitic when criticizing charges Nessel filed against pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Michigan.
For her part, Alexander said she would be participating in the nominating convention and said she believed the chair of the state Democratic Party, Curtis Hertel, had been “very accessible and very open to making sure that we, including our Jewish elected officials, feel safe in that space.” But she said she understood why Nessel was staying away.
“It would never even occur to me, but I’m not an elected official,” Alexander said. “It’s a different stake for me than it is for Dana. I understand her completely.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Maine rabbis call for peace, urge politicians to stop calling Gaza war a ‘genocide’
(JTA) — Every congregational rabbi in Maine has signed onto a statement calling for peace and urging the state’s political leaders to stop using the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza, following a Democratic primary in which several candidates used the label for the first time.
But the rabbis also indicated that they, too, were unsatisfied with conditions in the Middle East and called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to work toward a peaceful future.
“We call upon Maine’s leaders, and particularly its political leaders, to reject the irresponsible usage of the term in describing the Israel-Hamas War,” said the statement released on Friday. “We also call upon Israeli and Palestinian leaders to end the cycle of violence and to create a better world for both Palestinian and Israeli children.”
The statement, titled “A Call for Peace and Responsible Rhetoric,” argues that using the term as a “political slogan does not advance peace in the Middle East.” The term “erases essential moral and legal distinctions, diminishes the meaning of genocide, and inflames hatred for the local Jewish community,” the rabbis say.
“Compassion for Palestinians does not require the adoption of hateful and misleading language,” they continue. “Advocating for peace does not require participation in a ‘Holocaust inversion’ against the Jewish community. And political leadership does not require demonizing one community in the service of another.”
The statement comes days after Troy Jackson, a former logger and state Senate president, secured the Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nomination Saturday at the party’s nominating convention to replace Graham Platner, a staunch Israel critic who dropped out of the race earlier this month. Platner faced a sexual assault allegation, which he denies. Jackson now faces Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in November’s general election.
Platner’s romp to the primary victory featured routine use of “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions. And ahead of the convention to replace him, Jackson and several other Democratic hopefuls who later exited the race began using the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza for the first time, a shift that drew scrutiny from some Jewish leaders and voters in the state.
The use of the term has become a “currency for acquiring power and position in Maine’s Democratic party,” Rabbi Rachel Isaacs, the leader of Beth Israel Congregation in Waterville, who also signed the statement, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“Too many Maine Democrats are cynically willing to trade in that currency at the expense of our safety and dignity,” she said in an emailed statement. “We decided we needed to say something collectively, both about the specious and dangerous nature of the claim, and about how much damage has been done to our families and congregants.”
The statement Friday was spearheaded by the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine and signed by every congregational rabbi in the state, including Rabbi Bill Siemers of the Conservative Congregation Beth Israel in Bangor and Rabbi Erica Asch of the Reform Temple Beth El in Augusta. (Rabbis affiliated with the Chabad movement in Maine did not appear on the signatory list.)
Zach Schwartz, the director of the Jewish Community Relations Council at the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine, said the federation hoped the “unity displayed here in Maine can inspire Jewish communities across the US to also unite against the extremist rhetoric harming our community and our children.”
Rabbi Josh Stanton, the associate vice president of interfaith and intergroup initiatives for Jewish Federations of North America, also hailed the joint statement.
“Maine’s Jewish clergy are setting an important example with their call to put aside inflammatory rhetoric and look to the common good,” Stanton said in an emailed statement. “At a time of rising polarization and declining civil discourse, the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine’s efforts to unify the community around this important message are a mark of true leadership.”
Isaacs told JTA that she hoped Jackson would “support, understand, and advocate for all of Maine’s citizens, including the totality of Maine’s diverse Jewish community.”
“Work with us to figure out how to express outrage and legitimate critique of Israel’s government without succumbing to language that you might not know is an ancient antisemitic trope, or dismissing the security needs of Israel’s citizens,” Isaacs said of her message to Jackson. “Please have the courage to forge your own path, and not follow in the footsteps of Graham Platner, a man who should have never been normalized, endorsed, or empowered.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Boy George cedes role of King Herod in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ production after releasing pro-Israel song
(JTA) — Boy George has withdrawn from his run as King Herod in London’s West End revival of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” days before he was due to take the stage and 24 hours after releasing “We Will Dance Again,” dedicated to the victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on the Nova music festival in Israel.
The 80’s pop star was scheduled to appear at London’s Palladium starting Monday as part of the production’s rotating cast playing King Herod, the Judean king who is best known by Jews for his expansion of the Second Temple and to Christians for his efforts to stave off the arrival of a challenger — the story of which is reflected in the rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.
Boy George will be replaced by actor Richard Armitage in the London production.
In announcing the cast change, Paul Kelmsley, the singer’s manager, did not directly mention the blowback the former Culture Club frontman was receiving for releasing a pro-Israel song but alluded to it.
“George has never been afraid to stand by his personal convictions, and I have always respected him for that,” he said. ”In this instance, I felt it was right to step aside, allowing the production to remain the focus, while ensuring everyone involved can move forward with mutual respect and goodwill.”
Boy George is defending his decision to release the song, saying he believes artists should be free to express their views even when they are unpopular. In “We Will Dance Again,” the singer rejects claims of genocide against Israel and proclaims, “If you’re ever confused, I stand with the Jews.”
Earlier Friday, Boy George lashed back at the vitriol he was getting online. “What is most shocking is the amount of gay folk attacking me, ” he posted on X. “If you support terrorism you can in the words of Divine ‘Take your toolkit and go f—_ a garage,’” he said, referring to a quote attributed to the taboo-breaking transgender artist.
“When I say ‘they want to kill every last one of us’ I am also talking about us queers, not just the Jewish community,” Boy George said. “When will you wake up?”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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