synagogue spotlight
Tiferes B’nai Israel’s Legacy
is Key to its Survival
Sasha Rogelberg | Staff Writer
O n
March 26,
1924, Harry Cohen chartered
Congregation Tiferes B’nai
Israel in Warrington.

The synagogue’s name means
“the glory of the children of Israel,” a
prescient title for the shul.

Cohen emigrated from Russia to
Neshaminy in 1910, bringing with him
his Torah and his family. His four sons,
Wolf, Benjamin, Louis and Reuben
Cohen, kept the synagogue active
following the patriarch’s death in 1943.

Today, a Cohen still leads TBI. Louis
Cohen, great-grandson of Harry Cohen,
is TBI’s president and has led services
for the past 20 years. Cohen’s father
still attends services at the synagogue.

TBI’s foundation as a spiritual commu-
nity built from a family’s legacy is what
has kept it alive for almost 100 years.

Growing up two blocks away from
TBI, Cohen’s father instilled in him the
importance of being active at the shul,
and when the time came for Cohen to
lead the synagogue, he didn’t question
the responsibility.

“There was no expectations, no
pressure,” Cohen said. “At a young
age, I just did it.”
“I’ve always viewed TBI as a home,”
he added. “I knew nothing more,
nothing different.”
Cohen took a similar approach in raising
his sons, ages 30 and 26. While both
sons help in event set-up and support
TBI’s programs, Cohen hasn’t pressured
them to take over as the synagogue’s
layleader when he steps down.

“I don’t judge anybody on the way
they practice or the way they want to
[go to] synagogue, and I tried to do
that with my sons as well. … I have to
say that they will definitely continue
to support TBI in any way they can,”
Cohen said.

Not everyone from the younger
Jewish generation has an interest in
24 JUNE 8, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
The sanctuary of Tiferes B’nai Israel in Warrington
supporting synagogues like the Cohen
family. TBI, not exceptionally, is dealing
with a shrinking community, having
gone from 150 family members in its
heyday to about one-third of that today.

The synagogue’s culture of everybody
knowing each other’s name has stayed
the same, but now there are fewer
names to learn.

TBI has tried to adapt to the times.

Originally an Orthodox synagogue,
it now leans Conservative, but with
Reconstructionist rabbis leading
the community in the past. Rabbi-
in-residence Seth Frisch has been
involved with the synagogue on and
off for about a decade.

Frisch is the founder and director
of Lerhaus Institute of Jewish Studies
in Philadelphia, a text study program
based on a German institute popular-
ized in the 1920s to serve as a beit
midrash for assimilated Jews.

He first joined TBI as a full-time rabbi,
then left to pursue the Lerhaus Institute.

Frisk rejoined the synagogue a few years
ago as a rabbi-in-residence, balancing
his obligations to Lerhaus with providing
Courtesy of Tiferes B’nai Israel
rabbinic oversight for TBI.

“I said, ‘I’m happy to be a rabbi-in-res-
idence, address what your needs are,
help where I can, be a rebuilding
presence,’” Frisch said.

The rabbi’s commitment to revital-
izing the synagogue has materialized.

“It would be a shame to let this
synagogue, with the legacy of the
founders from the 1880s, with a family
that’s involved — all the various families
many generations later — it would
really be a shame to let this go out of
business,” Frisch said.

Last year, Frisch helped hire
Education Director Shelly Shotel
to rebuild TBI’s religious school.

Attendance for TBI’s makeshift
religious school had dwindled to about
two kids, a reflection of the impact of
COVID and apathy on synagogue life,
Frisch believed.

“They said the heart of a synagogue
is its school,” he said. “And it had fallen
on hard times.”
This year, TBI’s religious school had
12-15 kids attend regularly, accord-
ing to Shotel, who was previously at
The 1924 charter of Tiferes B’nai
Israel, signed by TBI president Louis
Cohen’s great-grandfather Harry
Cohen Courtesy of Louis Cohen
Temple Sinai in Dresher for 18 years.

The school, taught by Shotel, uses the
chevrutah model of pairing students to
have them debate and discuss topics.

During the three-hour session on
Sundays, Shotel also spends one-on-
one time with students.

Shotel agrees with Frisch’s belief
about the necessity of a religious
school for the health of a synagogue
and modern Jewish life.

“It nurtures the family environ-
ment and strengthens the bond with
Judaism within the family,” she said.

As the synagogue prepares for its
100th anniversary, Shotel hopes to
further expand the religious school,
incorporating field trips, Shabbat
dinners and mitzvah projects into the
curriculum. The budget for the school is small,
but this year’s growth holds promise
for the school — and the synagogue’s
— survival.

“It’s a gem in the middle of Bucks
County,” Shotel said. ■
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com