At Beth Israel Congregation in Owings Mills, tradition runs deep. In fact, the shul is getting ready to celebrate its 70th anniversary.
So, what’s the secret to remaining an integral part of the community for seven decades? Executive Director Leslie Wiener said it is a relatively common concept in Judaism, but one that nobody at Beth Israel takes for granted: heimish, a Yiddish word that translates as homey or cozy or warm.
“Everybody knows who you are. Everybody cares about you. If you don’t show up, somebody asks about you. They know about, they know your child’s birthday, or they know that you went on vacation. It’s that feeling that has always been part of the synagogue’s history,” she said.
Wiener said her family felt this when they first joined Beth Israel, and she knows that the families that continue to join to this day still feel that way. She knows that because it’s something they often hear from new members.
“It sounds very vanilla, but it is truly the feel. Everybody wants to be engaged … and meet other people and check in with others,” Wiener said. “It’s a tight community, and it’s a kind community, which goes [back] to our Jewish values of treating others kindly. I think that’s at the core of who we are.”
Beth Israel dates back to 1956 when a group of ten families bought a small cottage on ten acres of land in Randallstown. The next year, Beth Israel became affiliated with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, a large organization that oversees Conservative temples in North America.
Today, Beth Israel has expanded from a simple house of worship to a full-fledged community of likeminded Jews. The synagogue has an active social action committee, and participates in Habitat for Humanity projects. It hosts mitzvah days where members do things like pack bags for the homeless. Later this year, the shul will select a new scholar or artist in residence. It also has a learning committee that puts on various culture events, including a film festival.
In January, they are hosting another exciting film-centric event: a screening of the hit movie “Bad Shabbos,” complete with a Q&A with one of the film’s writers, Zach Weiner. The event will be accompanied by a reception with plenty of good desserts.
“One of the things we do well is plan programs. With the help of those on the film side and ourselves, it was really not a challenge,” Wiener said. “What we’ve really been doing is marketing it to the community. We want this to be a community event, so we’ve reached out to Jewish publications, we’ve reached out to other shuls, we’ve put it on The Associated’s calendar, we put it all over Facebook.”
That kind of work is nothing new to Wiener. As the executive director, she is used to navigating the synagogue’s needs as an organization and preserving it as a solvent entity. At Beth Israel, the religious side and the business side of things work very well in tandem, Wiener said.
“Even if we’re doing something that looks very secular, there’s certainly a religious component in some way. A Saturday night event, we’re going to have that event but start with Havdalah or minyan, and we work hand-in-hand in all the programming,” she said.
“Logistics and all those things might fall on my side, but I include the rabbi in all of that. … It’s one of the benefits of working at a smaller synagogue, is that we get to have that partnership every day and interact. On almost anything that’s going on, we include each other.”
That’s especially key because Beth Israel keeps their calendar packed. Chanukah, the High Holidays and Passover are, of course, big at the synagogue, but another holiday is particularly noteworthy for the Beth Israel community, too.
“Purim is so exciting. We’re doing ‘Wickedly Good Purim.’ It’s a Wicked-themed Purim Spiel. All of our religious school students are part of the spiel, and we have a dedicated group of volunteers that every year show up and do their thing,” Wiener said. “It’s something that they started.”
The close to 300 families that call Beth Israel home love it for its community-centric feel, active Jewish calendar and deep history and tradition. As the new year begins, they will continue to show up for services, events and each other.
