synagogue spotlight
What’s happening at ... Congregation Hesed Shel Emet
Congregation Hesed Shel Emet in
Pottstown Hires New Rabbi
JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
S he was a rabbi on a “sabbatical
of indeterminate length,” as she
described it; and they were older
synagogue members who had sold their
building and considered disbanding.

But now, Rabbi Cynthia Kravitz’s
“sabbatical” is over; and Congregation
Hesed Shel Emet members are stay-
ing together and keeping their temple
open. Kravitz, 69, is stepping up to lead
the Pottstown shul and its 40 families
on part-time pay.

The Lafayette Hill resident will help
maintain a congregation that dates to
1892. Most of the 40 families are older
and have been congregants for many
years, according to Larry Cohen, the
synagogue’s president. But, as Cohen
put it, “There’s not a year that goes by
that we don’t lose a couple members.”
“It’s mostly due to the fact that peo-
ple are aging,” he added.

Kravitz began her tenure on Aug.

1. It is her sixth synagogue position
in a career that started even before
her ordination at the Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College in 1983.

She served Society Hill Synagogue
in Philadelphia while still a rabbin-
ical student. Then she worked at
the Germantown Jewish Centre,
Congregation Or Ami in Lafayette
Hill, Kesher Israel Congregation in
West Chester and Temple Har Zion in
Mount Holly, New Jersey. Kravitz spent
22 years at Kesher Israel from 1997-
2019 before guiding Har Zion through
the difficult pandemic days of 2020.

After that tiring year, the rabbi
began her “sabbatical of indeterminate
length” in January of 2021. Kravitz
had spent four decades working to
enhance Jewish education and leading
congregations from the pulpit in the
Philadelphia area. She was also part
of the first generation of female rabbis
in the United States following Sally
Priesand’s ordination in 1972.

It was a career she was proud of and,
with the pandemic still raging, a future
she was uncertain about when she con-
28 Rabbi Cynthia Kravitz
Courtesy of Rabbi Cynthia Kravitz
Congregation Hesed Shel Emet has gathered at its building on Keim Street since
1962. 
Courtesy of Larry Cohen
“My plan is to get people to interact with each other as
much as possible. In person and on Zoom. Then you let
people take it from there.”
RABBI CYNTHIA KRAVITZ
sidered her next step.

Kravitz decided not to seek another
congregational position. Friends and
family members told her she was retired.

But she never fully adopted the label.

“Cynthia Kravitz does not know the
word retired,” the rabbi said. “I used
the year to study.”
She read Hebrew poetry twice
a week and took Zoom classes in
Jewish thought and history through
the Shalom Hartman Institute in
Israel and the Herbert D. Katz Center
for Advanced Judaic Studies at the
University of Pennsylvania.

“It cemented what I already knew,
but I could see it more clearly,” Kravitz
said. “Every generation of Jewish peo-
ple, we have our challenges. But it’s
our spirit and our belief that has really
carried us through.”
When Kravitz was meeting with
Hesed Shel Emet members during her
interview process, both in person and
over Zoom, she felt like they were her
partners. Both the rabbi and the con-
AUGUST 4, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
gregants understood their challenge:
Jews today are not affiliating with syn-
agogues like they did “40 or 50 years
ago,” Kravitz said.

“The biggest challenge is to help peo-
ple see the value of being able to come
together with others,” she added.

Based on that problem, the rabbi
and the congregation share a vision for
the future of the synagogue. Kravitz
said they want to “build relationships
between people,” and they want to
build them on the belief that “Judaism
is all of life.”
“My plan is to get people to interact
with each other as much as possible.

In person and on Zoom,” Kravitz said.

“Then you let people take it from there.”
Cohen believes that Kravitz and the
remaining members can make the
vision come to life. There are a lot
of Jews but not a lot of synagogues
in western Montgomery County, he
explained. The nearest synagogues are
in Phoenixville, Blue Bell and Reading,
all between 20 and 40 minutes away.

According to Cohen, a congregant
since 2015 who also grew up there in
the 1960s and ’70s, synagogue lead-
ers need to do a better job of reach-
ing out to people. They hired Kravitz
because, as an experienced rabbi, she
knows how to build a congregation and
understands that, in a community with
just 40 families, it’s her “number one
mission,” as Cohen described it.

“She needs to reach out and talk to
people,” he said. “Tell people we’re here
and we’re available.”
Hesed Shel Emet sold its Keim Street
building, which opened in 1962, to the
Bethel Community Church in 2016.

But congregants continue to worship
in its lower sanctuary. After giving
the church money for renovations, the
synagogue will begin paying $1,600 a
month in rent in a few years.

Cohen said the community will pay
that “in perpetuity until we decide to
end the contract.” JE
jsaffren@midatlanticmedia.com