synagogue spotlight
What’s happening at ... Congregation Beth Hamedrosh
Congregation Beth Hamedrosh a
Destination for Jews on Spiritual Journeys
A Jarrad Saff ren | Staff Writer
bout 75 people show up every
Saturday to Congregation Beth
Hamedrosh in Wynnewood
for Shabbat morning services. Then
throughout the week, 10 to 20 congre-
gants attend morning and evening
minyans. For a synagogue with 80 or so families,
that’s a high percentage of devoted
members. Many of them are Orthodox or,
as some like to say, traditional, after
growing up in a Conservative or Reform
Jewish community, or even outside
of a religious community altogether.

Their spiritual journeys took them to
Orthodoxy, Wynnewood and Beth
Hamedrosh. And now it’s the center of
their weekly lives.

“Certainly the members that have
been part of the congregation a while,
over a decade, are extremely dedicated,”
said Mark Solomon, a congregant in his
11th year. “Those that have joined have
adopted those practices.”
Solomon attributed that dedication
to “a love of Judaism.” It’s not just the
services, either. It’s a learning environ-
ment that includes morning Talmud
study sessions and evening Torah
classes. It’s also a spirit of helping one
another during periods of childbirth,
deaths in the family and other major
life events. Congregants step forward
to “provide meals or whatever families
may need,” said Beth Razin, a member
in her 32nd year.

Solomon, who was ethnically
Jewish but not religious, found Beth
Hamedrosh after his parents died
within 10 months of each other a
little over a decade ago. He started
looking for morning minyans, and the
Wynnewood synagogue was on his
route to work in Delaware. He stopped
in once and then kept coming back.

“I found that people there cared about
davening and Jewish law,” he said. “That
was something that was growing more
and more important to me.”
Razin discovered Beth Hamedrosh
when it was still located in Overbrook
Park in 1990. After growing up in the
Conservative movement, she became
shomer Shabbos with her husband
and started looking for other obser-
vant families so her kids could make
friends. They moved to Overbrook Park
and joined the synagogue that was two
blocks away.

The longtime member remained
dedicated to her spiritual home even
after her kids grew older and the home
moved down the street to Wynnewood.

Today, she needs to walk 1.1 miles instead
of two blocks. But she’s OK with that.

Congregation Beth Hamedrosh congregants at a community picnic
Photos courtesy of Rabbi Yonah Gross
24 JANUARY 5, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
“It was important to have shomer
Shabbat families that our kids could
play with,” Razin said. “We realized that
would only really happen in an Orthodox
community.” Beth Hamedrosh’s spiritual leader,
Rabbi Yonah Gross, arrived in 2009 from
an Orthodox synagogue in Phoenix. He
had never heard of Wynnewood before,
he said. He also had no idea that it was
part of the Philadelphia suburbs.

But when the rabbi got here, he
quickly discovered that the synagogue
was a good fi t. He enjoys the challenge
of answering halachic questions, and he
likes to meet Jews where they are to help
them fi gure out how to move forward
in their journeys. In the Wynnewood
community, his job is to do both.

Razin said that when Gross fi rst
arrived, he got 30 volunteers to go
around to people’s doorsteps during
the High Holidays and leave little bags
with apples and honey in them —
just to say happy holidays. Solomon
credited Gross with convincing him
to join the synagogue in 2011. It was
evident that the rabbi “cared about all
Jews,” he said.

“He’s the one who reaches out to all
diff erent Jews,” Solomon added.

According to Solomon, Beth
Hamedrosh’s parking lot is closed on
Shabbat. But if someone parks around
the corner and walks in, Gross and the
members greet them at the door.

“They are a Jew when they walk in the
door,” Solomon said.

Beth Hamedrosh’s congregation
includes baby boomers, Gen Xers and
millennials. According to Razin, families
from 40 or 50 years ago have moved out
and been replaced by younger house-
holds. Those young families move into
Wynnewood neighborhoods, then walk
to Beth Hamedrosh, since Orthodox
Jews don’t drive on the Sabbath.

This cycle has allowed the synagogue
to keep its membership base steady.

Razin and Gross don’t believe it has
declined or increased since Gross
started 13 years ago.

“As the rabbi said, it’s a good place
for a starter home,” Razin said of
Wynnewood. But Solomon explained that, over the
past 30 years, the Main Line has shifted
from a Conservative Jewish area to a
more Orthodox region. He also said
that more Orthodox people continue to
move to the Philadelphia area and that
they have a younger median age than
other Jewish denominations.

“Ten years from now, there are going
to be a lot more people in this building,”
he concluded. ■
jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
Beth Hamedrosh members share a meal.