synagogue spotlight
What’s happening at ... Beth Am Israel Synagogue
‘Soulful Shul’ Not Just a Tagline for
Beth Am Israel
ANDY GOTLIEB | JE EDITOR
V 28
Beth Am Israel Hazzan Harold Messinger (front row) sings with the synagogue's
Nitzinim class of 3- to 5-year-olds.

Rabbi David Ackerman
into its other activities, particularly
through its building and grounds.

“Our sanctuary is full of light,”
Dafi lou said. “Th e windows purposely
look over our woodlands, so we bring
nature into our sanctuary.

Speaking of the sanctuary, all of the
classrooms open directly to it.

“We feel having kids participate in
the service is essential to their Jewish
education,” she said.

As for religion, Ackerman said he’s
been able to experiment ritually and on
the education side during his 14 years
there. Th e prayer experience oft en is
fi lled with music.

“We want it to feel like a living room
jam, and it does kind of feel like a living
DECEMBER 8, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
room jam and camp,” he said.

Meantime, Beth Am Israel is working
on sustainability issues, doing things
such as converting to LED lighting,
tapping into wind credits for electric-
ity and only using compostable paper
goods, Dafi lou said.

And when nature presents a prob-
lem — a green patch in the center
of the parking lots regularly fl ooded
— attempts are made to resolve them
naturally. Th e space was turned into
a “rain garden,” with signage added to
explain its purpose.

Th e synagogue also encourages
activism. For example, it’s involved in
Hazon’s Climate Leadership Coalition,
distributes left over food to the commu-
nity and participates in the Lancaster
Farm Fresh Co-op.

“What sets us apart is that we really
live our beliefs,” Dafi lou said. “We go
to protests, we travel to Harrisburg, we
write letters ... if you have a cause you
feel strongly about, we will support you
and help promote it.”
Th at sense of activism extends to
the congregation, which long has been
LGBTQ-friendly. An October event
was entitled, “Judaism, Trans Identity
and Civil Rights.”
“Synagogues need to be welcoming
to all people,” Ackerman said. “To me,
there was not and remains not a hala-
chic problem. I’m proud and happy that
Cantor Jenn Boyle, the director of
family engagement and outreach,
prepares dough for a Shorashim
Limmud bread-making activity.

we’re seen as open and welcoming to
the LGBTQ-plus community.”
Th at includes having a gender-neutral
bathroom, along with signs on the other
bathrooms encouraging members to use
whichever one they identify with.

Ackerman expects Beth Am Israel to
continue evolving as its second century
approaches. That included some changes
prompted by the pandemic. Dafi lou
noted that the day aft er the shutdown
in 2019, the synagogue was conducting
services via Zoom.

“We’ve continued with Zoom ser-
vices to accommodate people who can’t
come to the synagogue,” she said, not-
ing that Zoom replaced the more-pas-
sive livestreaming because it allows for
greater interaction with those at home.

Th e synagogue will celebrate its
100th anniversary in 2024, having been
founded during the Roaring Twenties
at 58th Street and Warrington Avenue
in Southwest Philadelphia. As its mem-
bers moved to the Main Line, so did
the synagogue, relocating to its Penn
Valley location in 1973.

Events are in the planning stages,
including the commission of a new
Torah by Jen Taylor Friedman, the
fi rst-ever female soferim, Ackerman
said. JE
agotlieb@midatlanticmedia.com Photos courtesy of Beth Am Israel
isitors to the Beth Am Israel
website may notice the phrase
“BAI: the soulful shul of the
Main Line” and wonder if it’s just a
marketing phrase.

But longtime Rabbi David Ackerman
and Executive Director Lori Dafi lou
both say that’s not the case for the Penn
Valley institution.

“We’re pretty serious about growing
spirituality and spiritual space for our
congregants,” Ackerman said.

“Th e synagogue had always had a
reputation of doing its own thing,”
Dafi lou said.

And both Ackerman and Dafi lou
were quick to point out several pro-
grams that refl ect the spirituality of
the synagogue that the former some-
times describes as “Conservative with
a twist.”
For example, the synagogue is taking
advantage of its wooded campus to
incorporate outdoor learning into the
curriculum for the 54 students.

“Th e kids spend a lot of time in
the woods,” Dafi lou said, adding that
themes from the Torah and other texts
about caring for the world are peppered
into the lessons.

Bamboo on the property was turned
into wind chimes. Carrots were
planted and harvested (and tasted).

Composting is a mainstay. On a recent
day, the children made bread by wrap-
ping dough around a stick and cooking
it over a fi re.

For December, the theme of the les-
sons is light and darkness.

“Yesterday, it was 38 degrees at
four o’clock, and we were outside,”
Ackerman said, as the children
searched for sparks of light before
darkness. “Th ey had a ball. ... Th e kids
jump in the carpool line to get out
there.” Th e ya’ar (forest) featuring a ravine
was mapped out in recent years, with
some trails built, Ackerman said.

Th e synagogue, which counts about
340 families, incorporates the outdoors



d’var torah
Wrestling With Judaism
By Rabbi Elyssa Cherney
Parshat Vayishlach
W restling. We, as Jews, wres-
tle with so many things.

With identity, with being a
minority and with when and how to
live out our Jewish values.

Last week, in parshat Vayetzei
(Genesis v. 28:17), we see Jacob in a
state of awe. “Ma Norah ha Makom
Hazeh.” He awakes and says this line.

... Wow, how awesome is this place?!
Th is must be the place of G-d! He is
presumably in just an ordinary place
that he has stumbled upon during his
travels. Th e Hebrew word that is used
for awe, Yi-rah, is also the same word
that is used for fear.

Th is verse of Torah is the same verse
I use in a niggun (a wordless melody)
to open up a beautiful wedding cere-
mony. Why? Because I know that G-d
is surely there. Th at celebrating love is
indeed a place of awe. Yet somehow, it
is also a place of great fear. Fear of the
unknown. Fear of what life will throw
at this marriage. Fear of lack of support
from the community and world that
surrounds the couple.

Sometimes when we are in the
thicket of the weeds, it is hard to see
the miraculous vision of awe that the
Torah speaks about. We may be stuck
in the fi ght, in the wrestling. Yet, when
we get to the other side, I hope we are
struck with wonder and gratitude for
having gone through the journey. As
Torah teaches us, it isn’t just about the
joys but the griefs and challenges as
well. In this week’s parsha, Vayishlach,
Jacob wrestles with an angel and pre-
vails. He then asks to be blessed by
the angel before the angel departs.

Th e angel replies, “Your name shall no
longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have
striven with beings divine and human
and have prevailed.”
Th rough this wrestling, Jacob over-
comes his fears. Th e question I am left
with is: How do we wrestle with that
which we fear? Is it in fact wrestling
with something that turns it from fear
into awe? Or is awe always there as the
trembling curiosity and we must stop
to engage with it instead of running the
other way?
I think about these two verses from
time to time. I think about this con-
cept of awe/fear and how it relates to
the Jewish community. I think about
how the Jewish community I grew up
with and the one I am a part of now
are shift ing. I think about the ways
in which the Jewish community itself
must wrestle with its own identity and
defi nition of Judaism.

I’m in awe of the way in which Jews
and those who love them are being
more and more embraced in a world
that once feared their very existence. I
marvel at the way that I see non-Jewish
partners being welcomed into Jewish
spaces. Yet, many of these couples still
enter Jewish spaces with that fear. Fear
of rejection and fear of having to defend
their love. I don’t think interfaith fami-
lies have fully come to be accepted for
their similarities over their diff erences
within the Jewish community and are
still, in fact, wrestling.

When Jacob is blessed by the angel
and his name shift s, he no longer lives
in fear. Jacob instead lives with confi -
dence in his new identity, and his new
name Israel. He is able to approach his
relationship with his brother Esau in
a way that works toward peace versus
agitation. I wonder what that type of radical
acceptance would look like in the lib-
eral Jewish world. I can understand
both sides of the word Yi-rah as fear
and as awe. As if fear is, in fact, the
reverence of trembling in disbelief at
the infi nite possibilities before us.

Th ere is always going to be the fear
of change, and the foresight of amaz-
ing miracles as well. Perhaps we can
only experience true awe once we, like
Jacob, have gotten to the other side and
prevailed past fear.

Jews and those who love them have
already prevailed in so many ways.

For those who still wrestle with what it
means to hold a Jewish identity, I hope
you feel more blessings of awe than fear
in the journey ahead. JE
Rabbi Elyssa Cherney is the founder
and CEO of Tacklingtorah. Th e Board of
Rabbis of Greater Philadelphia is proud
to provide diverse perspectives on Torah
commentary for the Jewish Exponent.

Th e opinions expressed in this column
are the author’s own and do not refl ect
the view of the Board of Rabbis.

social announcements
B I RTH
B I RT H DAY
PAIGE JULIET DAUSCH
RUTHE VEDATSKY STEINBERG BROWNSTEIN
L R
u t h e Ve d a t s k y S t e i n b e r g
Brownstein celebrated her 100th
birthday on Nov. 10.

The celebration continued with a
party on Nov. 12, surrounded by her
family and friends who came from
across the United States and the
United Kingdom.

She is the mother of four children
and their spouses, a grandmother of
nine plus spouses and a great-grand-
mother of seven.

Courtesy of the Assour family
indsay and Justin Dausch announce the
birth of their daughter Paige Juliet on
June 23.

Sharing in the joy are grandparents
Susan Breslow Silver, Bob Silver, Janis
Zaidman Silver, Jane and Daniel Dausch
and great-grandparents Melvyn Breslow,
Roberta Steinberg, Barbara Breslow
(deceased), Marvin Silver, Geraldine Silver
(deceased), Judy Penziner (deceased) and
Michael Penziner.

Paige Juliet “Shoshana Yaff a” is named
in loving memory of maternal great-great
grandmother Sylvia Pearl and paternal
great grandmother Judy Penziner.

Courtesy of the Brownstein family
Courtesy of the Dausch family
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM 29