Or Hadash (Courtesy of Steve Leberstien)
At the beginning of the summer in 2025, Or Hadash listed its building for sale, but as a congregation, it has no plans to close. Instead, it’s looking to downsize.
Or Hadash is the current occupant of Heberton House, also known as Fairwold.
In the mid- to late-1800s, the area where George Washington camped during the Revolutionary War that came to be known as Camp Hill — modern-day Fort Washington — became a popular place for affluent Philadelphians to build their summer homes. The building Or Hadash currently resides in was built in 1888 by prominent Philadelphian John R. Fell.
“We were trying to find a long-term path to sustainability,” said Steve Leberstien, president of Or Hadash. “This is an old building. It’s an expensive building to maintain. We don’t use the whole building, so we were looking to start some conversations with potential partners to share the building.”
Or Hadash originally moved into the building in 1995 after purchasing its section from New Life Presbyterian Church. The congregation was founded by six families in 1983 and was originally named The Congregation of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, a laboratory congregation for students at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.
In 1989, the congregation officially decided to become independent of the college and renamed itself Reconstructionist Congregation Or Hadash. According to Leberstien, the membership numbers continued to grow and reached about 350 families in its first year at Fairwold. However, today’s membership numbers look very different.
“Like every other congregation, our numbers have decreased over the years, so we have a lot of unused space,” Leberstien said. “In the meantime, we continue to make improvements to the building.”
Leberstien said they are making upgrades to the building security features and are investing in the maintenance of the building itself.
“We’re not going to move geographically too far from our current catchment area,” he said. “We’ve identified some spaces, and our intent would be to continue to offer the same programming that we currently offer, which is pretty robust.”
For a new building, the congregation is looking for a possible long-term rental that includes classroom space for its preschool, which has around 50 students in attendance.
“I think it’s a lot of demographics. I think as congregations age out, people move away, they went into assisted living. We have a number of younger families now, probably 60 to 70% of the congregation is younger families now,” Leberstien added. “We have a very thriving school.”
Leberstien also added that the Hebrew school has been a big draw for families. “We’re here. We’re thriving. Our numbers are smaller, but we are attracting young families with school-age children because they think our school is fun. Even when we had snow days, the kids decided that they wanted to have classes on Zoom.”
One uncommon activity the school does is include the students in cleaning the synagogue’s kitchen to get it ready for Passover. Other events on the congregation’s calendar include a chocolate seder for Passover, an open mic night in the spring and many adult education programs.
“We’re not lacking for that in our current building, we just have a lot of unused space,” Leberstien said. “We’ve looked at a couple places that were formerly schools, but that’s not really the focus of our activity right now. We’re really focused on maximizing the use of our existing building.”
So far, the congregation has been successful in booking short-term rentals and while they continue to look for a new home, it plans on leaving Fairwold in top shape.