In 1974, a group of Main Line Jews got together to form a synagogue. Alan Daroff was one of them.
Over these 52 years, the congregation has continued to get together, despite demographic challenges and decreasing membership in recent years. Through it all, Daroff has remained one of them.
In his time at Congregation Or Shalom in Berwyn, the former salesman with Honeywell and father of two has served as synagogue president, vice president and treasurer. Early in the shul’s life, he led services because the synagogue didn’t have a rabbi. He has fixed the furnace, washed bottles, been called on to deal with floods and handled all sorts of “assorted crazy repairs,” as Julie Miller, his fellow longtime member, explained.
“He’s the perfect shomer for all seasons,” Miller said.
But these days, Daroff spends two of those seasons, summer and winter, in New Hampshire and Florida, respectively. That’s why he’s finally stepping away from a leadership role, as treasurer, at Or Shalom. Daroff said he mainly connects to the congregation over Zoom at this point.
“It just became too much for us to stay involved,” Daroff said of himself and his wife, Susan.
The 77-year-old is leaving the synagogue with a building that has an education wing, a preschool tenant within that wing and capital reserves to handle HVAC repairs and other issues that have popped up in recent years.
But the synagogue is down to about 65 members, and the current board is asking the treasurer to provide more information than the board required in the past. Daroff felt he would need a small team to handle that responsibility. It was not one he thought he could manage from Florida and New Hampshire.
“When the board was not that active, I felt I was doing a good job. But when they said, ‘Can you explain this or explain that,’ I said, ‘We’re going to need some additional people to do that,’” Daroff explained.
Daroff grew up in a Conservative Jewish household, attending Overbrook Park Congregation in the city. After his bar mitzvah, he enrolled in post-confirmation classes and attended teen minyans.
It was always important to him to be involved Jewishly. Early in their life together, Alan and Susan Daroff belonged to Har Zion Temple in Radnor, but then it moved to Gladwyne. Around that time, the couple saw an ad in a local newspaper asking if people would be interested in joining a new synagogue.
Daroff was away for the shul’s first meeting, but at the meeting, attendees asked if anyone knew how to lead a service. Susan volunteered her husband. When they talked on the phone about the meeting, she said, “You can, can’t you?”
The longtime synagogue leader served as a layman rabbi for 2-3 years before the shul hired a part-time spiritual leader. He helped Or Shalom purchase its first building at the site of the former Wayne Hotel on Lancaster Avenue in Wayne. He helped the shul buy its current building, too, on Darby Paoli Road in Berwyn. Daroff’s two children went through bar and bat mitzvahs and confirmations at the synagogue.
“The point was that it was the closest synagogue to where I am, and I felt there was a need to be active and participate with it,” he said. “I just felt an obligation to keep it going as long as possible.”
He has done his best, but even a dedicated leader can only do so much against demographic change.
Or Shalom opened its education wing in 2011, when it had around 200 members. In a 2023 Philadelphia Jewish Exponent story, Daroff called that moment the “peak” of Or Shalom’s congregational life. By the time of that story, membership was down to 75 people. Now, it’s lower than that.
At the time, synagogue leaders, including Daroff, told a familiar story: Their children had moved away, and their contemporaries were either passing on or also moving away. Now, the shul’s most dedicated member and leader is stepping aside because he has moved away for half the year.
“Unfortunately, the growth stopped a number of years ago,” Daroff said.
But the synagogue itself is not dead, and it hasn’t moved away, so its longtime board member still feels an obligation.
“My oldest granddaughter just got married. It’s time to turn it over to the next generation. What would happen if something were to happen to me and I couldn’t do an orderly transition?” he said. “We can do it slowly, to make sure people have the proper passwords and credentials.”
Andy Levin, an Or Shalom congregant, has served with Daroff on the board for 15 years. Levin said his fellow board member “has the best interests of the congregation in mind.”
“He’s invested in the future of Or Shalom,” Levin said.
“He has earned the extra time to enjoy himself,” he added.