{"id":246034,"date":"2026-07-17T18:36:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T18:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/246034\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T18:36:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T18:36:16","slug":"congregation-beth-am-israel-celebrating-100th-anniversary-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/246034\/","title":{"rendered":"Congregation Beth Am Israel Celebrating 100th Anniversary This Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Much of Beth Am Israel\u2019s youth programming takes place outside these days. (Courtesy of Congregation Beth Am Israel)<\/p>\n

Congregation Beth Am Israel was chartered in Southwest Philadelphia in the 1920s, spent its first 50 years in the city and moved to Penn Valley in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

Today, the Conservative synagogue remains at that Hagys Ford Road location, maintains a congregation of more than 300 families and proudly shares its 2025 \u201cBest Hebrew School\u201d award from Philadelphia Jewish Exponent readers on bethamisrael.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This October, the congregation will celebrate its 100th anniversary.<\/p>\n

Turning 100 is no small milestone, according to Rabbi Micah Weiss, the synagogue\u2019s new executive director who started last July<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think to me it really brings home the intergenerational nature of Jewish community and Jewish peoplehood,\u201d he said. \u201cWe stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, who were courageous enough to want to start a community, who scrounged together shekels to buy a building, who wanted to hire a rabbi.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through it all, Beth Am Israel has remained just that: a community.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew people, new families, a lot has changed over time, but it\u2019s continued this incredible gift of a community,\u201d Weiss said.<\/p>\n

As the year goes on, the congregation will celebrate that accomplishment.<\/p>\n

Last year, Beth Am Israel began the process of writing a new Torah<\/a>. Soferet Jen Taylor Friedman, the first known female scribe to complete a Torah scroll, has already visited twice to help each member write one letter in the Torah.<\/p>\n

In October, she\u2019ll visit once more to write the last few letters.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we\u2019ll eat and dance and sing,\u201d Weiss said.<\/p>\n

In recent years, Beth Am Israel has made better use of its outdoor space for services, special events and especially youth programming, according to Weiss.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re surrounded by beautiful trees and nature,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Soon enough, it will be surrounded by one more: On Erev Sukkot, members will plant a tree to honor the 100th anniversary.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to plant a special tree that will hopefully last for many years. A tree that hopefully our children and our children\u2019s children will play under for many years,\u201d Weiss said.<\/p>\n

Also in the fall, congregants will cook 100 meals for the food insecure and welcome in Eli Silins<\/a>, the owner and operator of Camuna Cellars, a kosher winery in Northeast Philadelphia, to make wine with Hebrew school students.<\/p>\n

During Silins\u2019 visit, students will stomp on grapes. Then, the winemaker will bring the grapes back to his winery, ferment them and transform them into a limited-edition wine for Beth Am Israel\u2019s 100th anniversary.<\/p>\n

A 100th anniversary gala will follow in the spring.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll have a big party,\u201d Weiss said.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the normal rhythms of synagogue life will continue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have Shabbat every week. Babies are born. People pass away,\u201d Weiss said. \u201cBut it\u2019s nice to stop and take a moment to celebrate all these years.\u201d<\/p>\n

After that moment, the congregation will look ahead. A capital campaign will be launched during the anniversary year as well.<\/p>\n

The executive director said he can\u2019t see a century into the future. But when asked to imagine the next five to 10 years, he predicted a couple of qualities and rhythms that will grow to define Jewish life at Beth Am.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne is very practical. I think that we are going to settle back into the rhythms of in-person Jewish life. The pandemic was very disruptive to a lot of Jewish communities. A lot of us got really isolated and got used to staying home more. Judaism has some really old and really important technology that a lot of the time requires being together,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also think we\u2019re reconnecting to a more Earth-connected, nature-focused Jewish life. We just built a new amphitheater outside. Our Hebrew school is all nature-based in outdoor classrooms. I hope that that kind of source of spirituality and nourishment will become more and more important in how we gather, how we worship and how we find meaning together,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n

jsaffren@midatlanticmedia.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Much of Beth Am Israel\u2019s youth programming takes place outside these days. (Courtesy of Congregation Beth Am Israel)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[182,139,69,71,70,61868],"class_list":["post-246034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-synagogue-spotlight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}