traditional Jews. Th ey even sent him to an Orthodox
school starting at age 2. Cadle never rebelled against
his upbringing, but he did feel a strong desire to
explore religion on his own.

In school, he came to realize that the argument for
Orthodox Judaism made sense, he said. Cadle did not
believe in a big bang because, as he put it, if there was
a big bang, what happened before that? He grew to
think that there had to have been a creator.

It took hours and years of study for Cadle to reach
that point, he explained. And if he had never gotten
there, he may have rebelled against his parents like
his own parents rebelled against theirs.

“It was important to me that, intellectually, I’m able
to embrace Orthodoxy, not just because my parents
embraced it,” Cadle said.

Once he did, though, he fully embraced it. Cadle
studied at three diff erent yeshivas, in Chicago,
Cleveland and Israel, respectively, to become an
Orthodox rabbi. Th en he built his adult life around
the faith and his work in it.

Aft er serving at a synagogue in Buff alo for several
years, he needed to move out of the area because it
did not off er an Orthodox high school for his daugh-
ters. In 2016, Cadle landed the job at Knesset Hasefer,
a congregation of about 60 families.

If the rabbi’s family lived in Yardley, his daugh-
ters could travel almost an hour to Lakewood, New
Jersey, which has a big Orthodox community, for
high school each day. Th e family settled into a nice
life, but a couple of years into it, the rabbi started to
grow restless.

In the fall of 2018, the shooting at the Tree of Life
synagogue complex in Pittsburgh, which killed 11
people, opened Cadle’s eyes to a scary reality. With
incidents of antisemitism on the rise, he no longer felt
comfortable in the U.S.

Maybe at long last, he thought and kept thinking
as the years went by aft er Tree of Life, it was time to
make good on one of his fundamental beliefs: that
he needed to go to Israel and await the arrival of the
mashiach, or the messiah. According to the rabbi, an
extraordinary period in history will bring about the
coming of the mashiach. Th is period, he explained,
began with the Holocaust, continued with the found-
ing of the state of Israel, continued still with the
fall of the Soviet Union, continued further with the
recent pandemic and also includes physical attacks
against Jews.

Th is was a Jewish concept before Christians applied
it to Jesus, according to Cadle.

“All Jews are to live in Israel. We believe there
is to be the building of the third temple,” he said.

“Mashiach will be in Israel. We believe it’s our holy
land.” In the late 2010s and early 2020s, Rabbi Cadle was
not the only Orthodox person who felt that way.

Th e rabbi’s colleagues, friends and acquaintances
began to discuss it with him, too. His congregants in
Yardley, though they did not share the feeling, under-
stood that their rabbi was going through it, according
to Cadle.

Finally, he asked himself the question: “Why am
I not living in Israel?” So, he started an initiative to
join up with other like-minded Jews to buy property
in Afula, a city in the homeland’s northern region.

Cadle and his new community chose the north
because it’s less crowded and more aff ordable, he said.

By the end of the summer, the group will own
enough land for 300 housing units, including
duplexes, apartments and single-family homes. Most
families making aliyah will own their homes, accord-
ing to the rabbi. Th e community also will rent space
for its synagogue, at least for now.

Congregation Brothers of Israel’s lay leaders made a unaninmous decision to loan one of their extra
Torahs to help start a new community in Israel.

Courtesy of Sharon Segarra
On June 16 at Congregation Brothers of
Israel in Newtown, Rabbi Aaron Gaber, left,
presented a Torah to Rabbi Nesanel Cadle for
Cadle to start a new community in Israel.

Courtesy of Sharon Segarra
Th e rabbi is going with his wife Mimi Cadle and
their fi ve children: daughters Esther, 19, Huvi, 17,
and Tzipi, 7, as well as their two sons Covi, 14, and
Bini, 10. For the other congregants, Cadle said there
was a vetting process that included an interview with
his “intake secretary,” calls to references and a Zoom
interview with him. Th eir goal was to make sure that
the families were “mentally, emotionally and fi nan-
cially stable,” he said. Th ey did not exclude families
who have children with disabilities.

“A brand new community cannot aff ord to absorb
everyone…if you’re not making it in the United
States, it’s going to be very hard to make it in Israel,”
Cadle said. “Th e person who’s struggling here, it’s not
like by moving there they won’t struggle.”
By the time the summer of 2022 approached, the
rabbi only needed two more things: a little more
money and a Torah. Th at was where Gaber came in.

CBOI’s lay leaders will be quick to tell you that,
once Gaber came to them with the idea, they unani-
mously approved it. Th e Newtown temple had extra
Torahs, according to its co-president Roz Zucker.

And it was hard to think of a better use for one than
as the seed of a new community.

“We wanted to donate to somebody who needed
the scrolls,” Zucker said. “Th ey were in the right place
at the right time.”
Brothers of Israel did not sell the Torah to Cadle.

But CBOI’s board of trustees did require certain
conditions. Cadle and his community will need to keep the
Torah Kosher with a maintenance program and
never sell it. Th ey also need to inform CBOI on an
annual basis that they are in compliance with the
loan program. Th ey would have to return the Torah
if they were to close for any reason.

“It’s sort of like a loan, a loan forever, as long as
they want it,” Zucker said. JE
jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
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