synagogue spotlight
Melrose B’nai Israel Emanu-El
in Elkins Park Is Surviving
Jarrad Saff ren | Staff Writer
M 24
JANUARY 26, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
Melrose B’nai Israel Emanu-El
It’s not a lot of space, but it’s enough, according to
Freedman. “We have a very cordial relationship,” he said of
the partnership with KI.

During that period of change, Schwartz joined
the synagogue. She chose Melrose B’nai Israel
after her rabbi at Congregation Adath Jeshurun,
Seymour Rosenbloom, retired and after she tragi-
cally lost a son, Joshua, who was 27. Schwartz was
looking for a new place that could meet her spiri-
tual needs, and Rosenbloom knew Melrose’s rabbi
at the time, Charles Sherman. Schwartz decided to
give it a try.

When she walked in for Shabbat services, she
was greeted by other congregants. “Would you like
to sit with us? What’s your name?” They did not just
let Schwartz sit by herself. But what sealed it for her,
she explained, was when she told the man who ran
Melrose’s minyan at the time, Len Cohen, to call her
if he needed someone. He called her twice that fi rst
week, and she’s been going ever since.

“Minyan is a place, you start your day off with
prayer, and that prayer is not only helpful to you, but
you are there to help other people. If you want to
say Kaddish or if you have a yahrzeit or if you have
something to share, that’s where you go to do it,” she
said. “I fi nd minyan to be a special place. I think it’s
one of the most important ways to start a morning.”
Melrose B’nai Israel Emanu-El can still play this
Melrose B’nai Israel Emanu-El President Shelley
Schwartz with the synagogue’s Torah collection
role in people’s lives, and it does. Its membership
has held steady in recent years at 250-275, accord-
ing to Freedman. Combined virtual and in-per-
son attendance for Shabbat services is usually
between 35 and 50 people. And even though
many members have not yet returned post-COVID,
Freedman and Schwartz hope to add more activities
moving forward.

All of this is worth preserving, according to
synagogue leaders. That is why they are starting a
six-month search for a full-time rabbi. In question-
naires, town hall meetings and prayer sessions, they
are asking members what they want from a new
spiritual leader. ■
jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
Photo by Jarrad Saff ren
elrose B’nai Israel Emanu-El is a synagogue
with no preschool or religious school. The
Conservative congregation of between
250 and 275 members has not had younger members
in “many years,” Cantor Stephen Freedman said.

And since 2012, it has rented a small wing in
the corner of a much bigger synagogue, Reform
Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park. Now,
in the process of returning to in-person activity
post-COVID, Melrose B’nai Israel congregants don’t
even have a full-time rabbi.

But don’t mistake this old community for a dying one,
according to Freedman and synagogue President
Shelley Schwartz. Melrose B’nai Israel Emanu-El has
a pulse, and it beats every morning during minyan,
every Saturday during Shabbat services and every
week during the Torah portion study session — the
only class to survive the pandemic.

It was also beating more consistently and percep-
tibly than it had in a long time on Jan. 21. That was
the day when Rabbi Saul Grife, the longtime but
retired spiritual leader of Beth Tikvah-B’nai Jeshurun
in Glenside, made his debut as the temporary leader
of “the little shul with the big heart,” as Melrose
B’nai Israel calls itself. After Grife led the service, he
hosted a lunch and learn.

“With Rabbi Grife starting, because I know he has
a certain following, the in-person numbers are going
to pick up,” Freedman said. “They’re coming to look
at us. Whether they’ll affi liate, I don’t know.”
Melrose B’nai Israel Emanu-El has been around
for more than 60 years. Before moving to the Old
York Road corridor, it had its own home nearby
on Cheltenham Avenue. But by the early 2010s,
that building was “no longer viable,” as Freedman
explained, quoting people who had explained the
situation to him. (The cantor joined Melrose in 2019.)
Bathrooms were not on the same level as the
sanctuary. Plans to make the building more acces-
sible were going to cost too much. The aging
congregation would have to fi nd a new home to suit
its needs. And it found that at KI, where it has its
own entrance, offi ce and sanctuary. When you walk
through the double doors, you see Melrose’s sanctu-
ary/social hall, split it into two in a single room by a
divider, to your left. And then you see an offi ce to
your right. On the back wall, a sign reads, “The little
shul with the big heart.”