I

World

Alternative Minyans

Turned off by traditional services, young Jews form new prayer groups.

Sue Fishkoff
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

San Francisco

I

n a second-story room of
a downtown community
building, a young, redheaded
woman wearing a long skirt and
sandals leads 80 worshippers in
the prayer service that welcomes
Shabbat. Men and women are
sitting together, but a few men
— not comfortable sitting with
women during services — pray
off to the side. .
As Kabbalat Shabbat moves
into Ma'ariv, the evening prayer,
the woman leading the group
steps aside and a young man
takes over, in deference to some
worshippers who hold that only a
man can discharge a time-bound
obligation on behalf of the con-
gregation.
The davening, or praying, is all
in Hebrew. Nose rings and dread-
locks mix with knitted yarmulkes
and tzitzit. Except for a couple
of visiting parents, no one looks
older than 35.
This is Friday night at the
Mission Minyan, a three-year-old,
lay-led minyan, or prayer com-
munity, in San Francisco's hip
Mission district. It's one of more
than a dozen such independent
minyans nationwide, all less than
five years old, all founded by Jews

in their 20s and early 30s.

Even as the organized Jewish
community wracks its collective
brain for ways to lure unaffiliated
youth into synagogues and feder-
ations, hundreds of these Jewishly
literate, spiritually driven young
professionals are gathering regu-
larly in living rooms and rented
halls around the country for inno-
vative Shabbat
services they
create by and for
themselves.
"We are seeing
more ferment
among young
Jews today than
at any time since
the havurah
movement of the
`70s:' says Jonathan Sarna, a pro-
fessor of American Jewish history
at Brandeis University.

says Julia Appel, a founder of the
Tikkun Leil Shabbat minyan in
Washington, who says she's tired
of synagogues throwing "wine
and cheese parties" to attract
younger Jews.
These are not beginners' servic-
es: The davening is fast and pro-
ficient, led by people with strong
Jewish backgrounds who went to

While the numbers may be
small — Sarna estimates no
more than 1,000 to 2,000 people
nationwide — their impact on
the greater Jewish community
will be significant, he predicts.
"The leaders of the havurah
movement of the '70s are the
leaders of the Jewish community
today, and I'm certain we'll see

"We are seeing more ferment among young
Jews today than at any time since the
havurah movement of the '70s."

Experimental Judaism
These minyans don't follow the
rules. Eschewing movement
affiliation, operating without rab-
bis and on shoestring budgets,
they differ in their approach to
Halachah, or Jewish law, but are
united by a spiritually intense,
highly participatory style of wor-
ship and a willingness to experi-
ment with ritual forms. "It's not
about latke-eating contests or
sending us to Israel; it's about
creating authentic Judaism:'

'Trichitza'

Sue Fishkoff
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

an Francisco's Mission Minyan
may be the only prayer
community that regularly
employs the "trichitza" today, but it
pops up in a handful of other, tempo-
rary congregations, including college
Hillels and Israel summer programs.
And it was not uncommon in American
synagogues before World War II.
From its beginning almost three

– Jonathan Sarna

day schools or Jewish summer
camps, were active in their col-
lege Hillels and may have spent
time in Israel. Some are rabbinic
students or newly ordained rab-
bis. They're looking to recapture
the intensity of their early Jewish
experiences, and aren't finding it
in established synagogues.
"We're trying to create a viable,
egalitarian community with a
small, shtiebl-like feeling, where
people are warm, welcoming and
hospitable to each other',' says
Yehuda Kurtzer, who with a few
friends founded the Washington
Square Minyan in Brookline,
Mass., in January 2005.

years ago, the Mission Minyan insti-
tuted tripartite seating – men's and
women's sections on the side, and
mixed seating in the middle – so that
all members of the community could
worship in the same room. It was a
practical compromise, not an ideologi-
cal statement.
They'got the idea from Jews in the
Woods, an online community of young,
activist Jews that organizes mass
Shabbatons in rural settings four or

five times a year.
"We regularly have people from
Orthodox, Conservative, Reform,
renewal and secular humanist back-
grounds in one davening place," says

the same thing" with the new
minyans, he says.
The phenomenon started seven
years ago with the Shtibl Minyan
in Los Angeles, followed closely
by Kehilat Hadar on Manhattan's
Upper West. Hadar was joined in
2002 by Kol Zimrah and Darkhei
Noam in New York and the D.C.
Minyan in Washington.
Today, there are almost a dozen
such minyans in New York, a
handful in Boston, Washington
and Philadelphia, and others in
New Jersey, Denver, Minneapolis,
San Francisco, Los Angeles and
New Haven. They're growing fast.
Pico Egal, founded in

Zachary Teutsch, co-coordinator of the
2003 Jews in the Woods gathering.
"Because of that diversity, we needed
a creative solution. We had no idea it
was used in the 1920s."
In fact, the trichitza arrangement
was "very common" in Orthodox and
Conservative congregations between
the two world wars, says Jeffrey
Gurock, professor of American Jewish
history at Yeshiva University. The
1920s, '30s and '40s were "years of
great fluidity," he notes, a time when
the line of demarcation between the
movements wasn't as set as it is today.
"You had every variety you could
think of," he says. "You'd have mechit-

December by five young Jews in
Los Angeles, now has 40 regulars
and more than 150 names on its
e-mail list. Philadelphia's Minyan
Merkaz, established by 10 people.
in February, had 80 worshippers
at its August Shabbat and has
outgrown its rental space.
Older minyans can have 100 or
more people at services. For now,
only a couple of these minyans
ask for dues; most raise the little
money they need through vol-
unteer donations. And they don't
advertise; people find out about
services through Web sites, e-mail
and word of mouth.
In late August, representa-
tives from 11 new minyans got
together in Princeton, N.J., for
their first national conference,
funded by the Nathan Cummings
Foundation and Synagogue 3000.
One topic discussed was whether
to form a national network, a
question these fiercely indepen-
dent groups will take back to their
members.
"In the olden days,'01 and
`02, we all knew each other': says
Hadar founder Elie Kaunfer, a
rabbinic student at the Jewish
Theological Seminary. "Now the
minyanim are in the second and
third generation of leadership.
They need to share resources and
feel connected."

Minyans on page 62

za (divider) at certain services and

not at others, congregations that had
mechitzas during the year and not on
High Holidays, others that had move-
able mechitzas."
The further one got from New York,
Gurock says, the more experimenta-
tion one found. He describes a congre-
gation in Tulsa, Okla., where one side
of the congregation was for men only,
the other side was for mixed seating,
and a mechitza divided the two.
Rabbi Ellen Dreyfus of Chicago wit-
nessed a "trichitza" in an Orthodox
synagogue in Peoria, Ill., in 1974. And
Gilah Langner of Washington notes

'Trichitza' on page 62

September 21 0 2006

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