synagogue spotlight
What’s happening at ... Congregation Kol Ami
Congregation Kol Ami Staying
Together with Help from Neighbor
JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
Photo by Jarrad Saff ren
C ongregation Kol Ami started in
a member’s basement in 1994,
evolved into a traveling com-
munity that met in local synagogues for
the next 12 years and then moved into its
own building, at 8201 High School Road,
in 2006.

A visit to that Elkins Park site today,
though, will show that a construction
crew is hard at work transforming it into
a yeshiva. Kol Ami sold the property
in 2021 because, with the congregation
shrinking from 205 households in the
early 2000s to 140, it was “more than
what we needed,” Kol Ami Rabbi Leah
Berkowitz said.

Today, the Elkins Park synagogue is
still in Elkins Park. It’s just minutes
away from its old location, at 8231 Old
York Road, the home of Beth Sholom
Congregation. For the last year-plus, the synagogues
have shared the wide space known for its
Frank Lloyd Wright-designed sanctuary
on its east end. And the arrangement
is going well, according to leaders from
both communities.

Reform Kol Ami and Conservative
Beth Sholom are still separate congrega-
tions with their own clergy, lay leaders,
boards and members. But since Beth
Sholom has about 450 families, down
from its peak of about 850 in the 1980s,
it has plenty of room for welcoming its
new tenant.

Th ere are fi ve worship spaces and an
entire classroom wing, according to Beth
Sholom Rabbi David Glanzberg-Krainin.

Kol Ami also has some of its own offi ces,
Berkowitz said.

Both congregations prefer the small,
multipurpose Bornstein Auditorium for
Friday night services. So, Beth Sholom
holds its service at 6 p.m., and Kol Ami
comes in aft erward at 7:30.

For a Conservative community, the
Friday night service is a short, pre-dinner
aff air; the Saturday morning gathering is
the big one. But for a Reform shul, Friday
night is the main event.

“One of the reasons this arrangement
works is our communities are diff erent
enough, and it would be possible to be
in the same space without confusion or
competition,” Berkowitz said.

“From our perspective, it’s been a won-
derful relationship,” Glanzberg-Krainin
added. Berkowitz, 40, is from Delaware
County but worked as a rabbi for 18 years
in North Carolina, Massachusetts and
New York before returning to the area in
2018. Shortly aft er she took the job at Kol
Ami, she faced the potential move.

Synagogue leaders knew by the end of
2019 that they had to sell their property.

In the early 2000s, they hoped to increase
their congregation to about 225 house-
holds, but they never quite got there. And
then, like so many synagogues, Kol Ami
started losing members. As Glanzberg-
Krainin explained, “We haven’t seen a
growth of Jewish families moving to this
area.” “A lot of congregations had that goal
in the early 2000s, and things shift ed,”
Berkowitz said of Kol Ami’s growth tar-
get. “Places weren’t growing anymore in
the way that we had been.”
But months aft er synagogue leaders
came to that realization, COVID hit,
putting the sale process on hold. Th e
pandemic also forced members to start
gathering online which, in a way, brought
them back to their roots.

No longer were they traveling to their
High School Road campus for every syn-
agogue activity. Instead, they were just
fi nding a place to gather and to stay
together. “Our thought was not, ‘We don’t need
a building anymore.’ We wanted to be
back in person. We want to see each oth-
er’s faces,” Berkowitz said. “It just doesn’t
need to be within these four walls.”
At the same time, with 140 households,
Kol Ami still had too many members to
just gather in people’s basements again.

Th at was where Beth Sholom came in.

Kol Ami leaders wanted to stay in their
community, according to President Gary
Turetsky. Beth Sholom leaders recog-
nized that they could help their congrega-
tion by charging rent, Glanzberg-Krainin
acknowledged. But more importantly,
Beth Sholom Congregation is welcoming
Congregation Kol Ami into its building at 8231
Old York Road in Elkins Park.

A worship space that two Elkins Park
synagogues now share inside the building at
8231 Old York Road
they wanted to help preserve a Jewish
community. “Th e Jewish community benefi ts when
we have more Jews who are engaged in
building community,” he said.

Last summer, the groups came
together. Members enjoyed a meet-and-greet,
and Beth Sholom’s president welcomed
Kol Ami congregants in a speech during
one of the High Holiday services. Today,
the temple presidents and rabbis meet
monthly, and a joint Selichot program,
marking the refl ective month of Elul
leading up to the High Holidays, is
planned for the coming days.

But leaders maintain that these are
separate institutions with diff erent prayer
books, services and congregations — and
no plan to merge. Th ey are just neighbors
helping each other out.

“We are very much a family,” said
Turetsky of his congregation. “Th at is
really what’s worth preserving.” JE
jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
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