Due to its location in Anne Arundel County, Temple Beth Shalom is situated in a part of the state with a fairly small Jewish community. In fact, Beth Shalom is one of only three synagogues in the county, and the area’s only Reform congregation.
Annapolis is also very far from any of the state’s Jewish community centers — the closest is the Weinberg Park Heights JCC, but not everyone can regularly make the nearly 25 mile trip there and back. So while Beth Shalom is a medium-sized synagogue, boasting around 365 families, it often pulls double duty as a community hub for Anne Arundel County’s Jewish population, hosting Jewish events in addition to regular services and holiday celebrations.
“Communal things happen here at our temple. We organize them and make them happen,” said Beth Shalom Rabbi Ari Goldstein. “Some of the other synagogues in the area don’t have the infrastructure to host larger-scale community events. We do, and we take that responsibility seriously.”
Goldstein added that there are typically at least three events taking place at Beth Shalom every week, on top of the synagogue’s regular Shabbat services, Hebrew school classes and Torah study. Some of these offerings are fairly common at synagogues, like mahjong get-togethers and meetings of Beth Shalom’s sisterhood book club. But the synagogue also hosts events for Jewish community organizations and local performers.
“In terms of the professional resources here, we are fairly limited. But we are still able to provide an abundance of enrichment activities that I think are considerably more than the size of our congregation might normally dictate,” Goldstein noted.
One of Beth Shalom’s most unique partners, whom it regularly hosts, is Live Arts Maryland. The synagogue has had a partnership with the cultural organization, consisting of the Annapolis Chorale, the Annapolis Chamber Chorus, the Annapolis Chamber Orchestra and several others, for many years. Some of these groups, such as the women’s choir Cantori, have performed at Beth Shalom in the past, both at High Holiday services and other synagogue-hosted events.
Similarly, the synagogue has also partnered with the Annapolis Symphony Academy, a local music school for children and teens. Beth Shalom events give these students a judgment-free zone where they can perform in front of a sizable audience at events. And for a recent Broadway revue event, Beth Shalom worked with the Annapolis Opera Company.
“We see ourselves as not just housing these different groups, but as creating relationships with them,” Goldstein said. “They’re not just using our space, we’ve invited them to partner with us at the synagogue and create music with us. Not just Jewish music, but secular music as well.”
Beth Shalom also hosts events for local and national Jewish organizations, having held events organized by Hadassah in the past. Not all of the events the synagogue hosts are specifically Jewish in nature, either, but tie into Jewish themes and open themselves up to discussion based on Jewish thought. A particularly notable example was January’s “How Green Do You (Or Your Loved Ones) Want to Be? Reform Jewish Perspectives on New and Traditional Burial Options,” which was an educational look at the green burial process. Green burials are meant to be more beneficial to the environment than being buried in a coffin or cremated, often foregoing the embalming process due to the harmful emissions it creates or having a tree planted in the deceased’s honor. Traditional Jewish law forbids both embalming and cremation, making green burials a potential option for grieving Jews.
“That one was for the community, not just for our congregation. But it was still an opportunity for people to grow and learn more,” Goldstein said of this event.
While some of these events may seem unrelated to Beth Shalom’s offerings as a synagogue, Goldstein believes that it is just as important for a synagogue to serve as a community space as it is for it to be a place of worship.
“Anne Arundel County not being a very big Jewish community can be frustrating for Jews in the area,” he explained. “We create opportunities for the wider Jewish community because I think it adds to the general morale. Seeing other Jews in the area participating makes us feel stronger as a community, and helps the people in our congregation feel better about where they’re at.”
