synagogue spotlight
Jarrad Saff ren | Staff Writer
C ongregation Kol Emet’s new
outdoor contemplative space
is not a big sanctuary with
seating for hundreds. It’s a small patch
of land with benches and enough
seating for perhaps 100 people.

But leaders at this Reconstructionist
synagogue in Yardley want to use the
space for the biggest events in Jewish
life, from High Holiday services to
bar and bat mitzvahs. They also want
to use it for regular activities on the
Jewish calendar, like Shabbat services.

The outdoor sanctuary is the
primary piece of a $750,000 capital
campaign to upgrade the synagogue.

Post-COVID, this congregation of
about 180 households is leaning into
the outdoors, to the smell of fresh air
and to intimacy.

The synagogue broke ground on
its outdoor sanctuary on April 2. It is
dedicating the space on June 4 with a
ceremony, a barbecue and an ice cream
truck. “I can’t wait until June 5 so we can
use it,” said Sue Weiner, the religious
school and camp director at Kol Emet.

The congregation’s rabbi, Anna
Boswell-Levy, is also counting down
the days.

“I really am excited to lead services
in that space and see how it feels to
be out there, be singing. Acoustically,
it will be diff erent,” she said. “The fresh
air on people’s skin. It’ll change the
whole dynamic. Kids could run around
and be loud kids.”
Boswell-Levy explained that Kol
Emet has always been a community
open to experimentation. And during
COVID, it had to experiment with
outdoor services and activities. Two
years ago, the congregation gathered
for High Holiday services outdoors. On
another occasion, members watched
an Eagles game in the sukkah.

As synagogue member Geoff Goll,
whose engineering fi rm, Princeton
28 MAY 18, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
Kol Emet synagogue leaders (back row) Howard Greenberg and Ken
Goldstein and (front row) Liz Ravitch, Alexis Miller and Sue Weiner in the
shul’s new outdoor contemplative space
Kol Emet’s new outdoor contemplative space
Hydro, designed the space, explained
last fall, congregants wanted to fi nd
a way to use the property better. Kol
Emet’s patio could only fi t about 30
people. So, Goll’s blueprint for the
contemplative space allowed for more
than twice that number. The outdoor
sanctuary has enough seating, no
walls and wheelchair accessibility.

“There are benches. There’s light-
ing. There’s electricity. There’s Wi-Fi,”
the rabbi said. “We’ve made it easier
to be outside. It allows us to be more
unbounded.” “It says to our congregation that we
are a community that is open,” added
Howard Greenberg, the shul’s incom-
ing president. “And we want people to
have options. People could have a bar
mitzvah out here. We could put a table
on the side so, if it’s small enough, they
could eat.”
“I think it signifi es how healthy our
congregation is,” said Alexis Miller, the
synagogue’s executive director.

Ken Goldstein, Kol Emet’s treasurer
and a member since the ‘90s, said that
an outdoor sanctuary has been an idea
among the leadership for two decades.

But a donation from the Schatz family,
a longtime member household, made it
fi nancially possible, and the pandemic
created a desire among the congre-
gants. As Goldstein explained, “People
want to be outside.”
“I don’t think we’ll have to twist
anybody’s arm to have an event out
here,” he added. “It’ll be the opposite.

If there’s any way they can do it
outdoors, they will do it outdoors.”
According to Weiner, Kol Emet’s
summer camp will use the space as its
amphitheater and use it every morning
and afternoon as its meeting place to
begin and end the day. Liz Ravitch,
the synagogue’s preschool direc-
tor, said that the school has Shabbat
every Friday, and once the space is
dedicated, she wants to move Shabbat
outside so students can experience
nature. Boswell-Levy mentioned that
families are already considering the
outdoor sanctuary as an option for bar
and bat mitzvahs.

Greenberg hopes the space can
attract the unaffi liated masses of Jews
in the Yardley area. Boswell-Levy also
thinks that it may help with expenses if
it can be rented. But even if it doesn’t
do either of those things, that’s OK.

“The days of the big synagogues with
thousands of members, it would be
lovely fi nancially if that could happen,
but I think those days are over,” Ravitch
said. “And I think the more intimate
kind of gatherings are what people are
looking for. And you could still have
100 people out here. It’s not like it’s
limited to 10 people. But I think those
are the kinds of gatherings that people
are looking for nowadays.” ■
jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
Photos by Jarrad Saff ren
Congregation Kol Emet Introducing
New Outdoor Contemplative Space