synagogue spotlight
Tiferet Bet Israel Grows With
Pay-What-You-Can Financing Model
Jarrad Saff ren | Staff Writer
Photo by Jarrad Saff ren
Courtesy of Tiferet Bet Israel
I n 2020, Tiferet Bet Israel in Blue Bell introduced
a pay-what-you-can model for synagogue dues,
increased its congregation by 3.5% to 361 families
and reversed “several years of decline,” as a Jewish
Exponent article from that year described it. But
then COVID-19 broke out, and TBI was not immune.

A membership base of 361 plummeted to about 264.

Today though, as the synagogue reopens, its
leaders and members have not given up on the
model. They still call it Heshbon Lev, which is
Hebrew for an invention of the heart. And congre-
gants are still contributing. Executive Director Matan
Silberstein said there is a 100% participation rate.

Perhaps the most encouraging sign, though, is that
Heshbon Lev appears to be attracting new members
again. TBI’s congregation has recovered from its
pandemic low to include about 300 households.

And since most of the new families are young, so is
more than half of the congregation now, according
to Silberstein.

“Congregants are always waiting for the next
fundraising ask,” said TBI President Jeff Llewellyn, a
member since 2008. “And each year, they’re pleas-
antly surprised when we’re less focused on money
and more focused on engagement.”
Silberstein and Llewellyn explained that events at
the Blue Bell shul are now about what people want
to do. A gathering before 2020, for example, might
have been built around how many people could pay
$36 to get in. But an occasion today is just about
getting a headcount so synagogue leaders know
how much chicken to buy for dinner.

In December, 230 people showed up for a concert
by Yonina, the Jewish musical duo. That same
month, TikTok’s @challahprince, who has more than
142,000 followers from his challah-making videos,
did a challah-braiding event at TBI and attracted
180 members and locals. And on Jan. 27, 200
congregants showed up for a third-grade conse-
cration during Friday night services. There are also
young family programs, special Shabbat dinners
and lunches after Shabbat morning services on
Saturdays. Rachel Blum, 37, a congregant with her husband
and young daughter, attended the challah-braiding
event and said people talked about it afterward “for
weeks.” They kept saying how good it felt to just be
able to show up and braid challah.

TBI members enjoy an activity together.

The sanctuary inside Tiferet Bet Israel in Blue Bell
“There’s no barrier to engagement,” Blum said.

“You just get to be part of the community without
worrying about, ‘Can we aff ord that this month?’”
Blum’s husband is a Realtor, so their family
fi nances often depend on the housing market.

Pre-Heshbon Lev, they might have had to make a
diffi cult decision about their synagogue member-
ship during a downturn. But now they do not have
to worry about it.

“This helps you not make that decision. That
decision of letting go of your community,” Blum said.

“There’s always that option of increasing your pledge
or decreasing your pledge.”
Pamela Kuperstein, 35, a member with her husband
David and their two young kids, is an accountant
who discovered the pay-what-you-can model while
serving as synagogue treasurer in the late-2010s.

TBI’s old dues system was “doomed to failure,” she
said, and other synagogues were already trying the
pay-what-you-can approach.

Kuperstein believes the approach is working. When
they joined TBI in 2016, they got a packet outlining
diff erent categories of dues-paying members. As a
childless couple in their 20s, they could not check
any of the boxes. So Pam reached out to synagogue
leaders, who created a category for the Kupersteins.

Today, though, there are no categories.

But there are still issues. TBI is attracting fewer
people to regularly scheduled events than it was
pre-COVID, according to David Kuperstein. And the
education toward fundraising still needs to improve.

Members think they pay once, and that’s the end of
the conversation. But for a shul with its own building,
fi nancing needs to be an ongoing discussion.

TBI is getting by on preschool tuition payments,
payments from a Hindu school that rents space,
grants from public and private sources and larger
donations from certain congregants. Combined with
the “wide range of givers” in the membership base,
as Silberstein describes them, it adds up to enough.

At the same time, “It still needs some reinforcement,”
David Kuperstein said.

The issues, though, do not outweigh a simple fact.

Congregants used to have to pay $250 to sit close to
the bimah during High Holiday services. Big crowds
in the back and open seats near the front became an
annual scene. But this past year, there was no option
to pay $250 to reserve a good seat. People came in,
sat together up front and fi lled the sanctuary.

“It felt really diff erent and really great,” Pam
Kuperstein said.

“Everybody was together, closer,” David Kuperstein
concluded. ■
jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM 21