Before, during and after its annual dinner and campaign on April 28, the Bensalem Jewish Outreach Center celebrated its 25th anniversary by raising about $1.1 million, according to rayze.it/bensalemdinner/. More than 800 people contributed to the campaign.
Rabbi Daniel Miller, the director of outreach for the center, said that $1.1 million is a record for the annual campaign. The annual fundraising effort supports the operations and growth of the independent, Orthodox outreach organization, which aims to reach the 50,000 Jews in Bucks County.
“It’s an incredible accomplishment,” Miller said of the 25th anniversary. “It’s a testament to Rabbi (Moshe) Travitsky’s hard work.”
Today, the Bensalem Jewish Outreach Center has a synagogue with services three times a day, a Kollel with 10 to 12 rabbis who spend their time studying Talmud and serving the community, a Hebrew school on Sunday mornings and a mikvah, among other programs.
But when it started more than a quarter-century ago, it consisted mainly of Rabbi Travitsky loading his family in the car each week to spend Shabbat with a community of Orthodox Jews in Bensalem.
They needed a rabbi, and so they sent word down to Lakewood, New Jersey, the second-biggest Orthodox community in the country after New York. Travitsky was a young rabbi in Lakewood, so he stepped forward to take on the role.
“He started coming in for every Shabbat. Every Shabbat was at a different house,” Miller said.
Rabbi Travitsky, his wife Malky Travitsky and their large, growing family, which now includes 12 kids, packed up their van and spent Shabbat in Bensalem for “years,” according to Miller. Finally, around 25 years ago, they “moved in,” he said.
The rabbi and rebbetzin started with a purchase of a “small piece of a strip of stores,” Miller said. Then, they bought the storefronts on either side of their property and broke down the walls. A couple of years later, the building behind theirs went up for sale, and “that’s our social hall now,” Miller added. In the same complex, a bank building then went up for sale. Rabbi Travitsky needed to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in a matter of days; he did it.
“What we have here has grown over the years,” Miller said.
Indeed, it has. The center offers religious experiences for any type of Jewish person or family.
Perhaps nowhere is that more evident than within the Kollel. The rabbis spend their days devoted to “scholarship and character development,” as Miller put it. But they also remain open to any and all visitors with questions about their Judaism. When you walk in, “you will be greeted with a smile,” Miller said. There are now more than 50 Torah study partnerships on a weekly basis between the rabbis and Jews who want to learn.
In addition to Torah study, the community’s mikvah, Hebrew school, preschool and holiday programs are doing well. The mikvah has been used over 8,000 times in the last 20 years, according to Miller. Hebrew school and preschool classes welcome 15 to 30 children. Recent holiday gatherings for Chanukah and Purim drew 150 people each. The center attracts Jews from Feasterville, Southampton, Holland, Fairless Hills, Richboro, Levittown and Yardley, among other Bucks County towns.
“We’re very warm and welcoming to people from all backgrounds,” Miller said. “It’s a very vibrant, young community.”
Miller, who joined the community in 2019, credited Rabbi Travitsky for continuing the spiritual energy that started in that van and in those homes all those years ago.
“He’s a powerhouse of doing. He works nonstop. He puts his blood, sweat and tears into this,” Miller said.
The leader of the community also takes it upon himself to cover the many costs, according to Miller. As he put it, “There are no local billionaires supporting the community.” Rabbi Travitsky raises money by visiting potential benefactors in Lakewood and New York. The recent 25th anniversary dinner was actually in Lakewood, not Bensalem.
His pitch to them is simple, according to Miller.
“Do something for the Jewish nation,” the younger rabbi said.
It also helps that he can point to the one he’s built in Lower Bucks County.
Rabbi Travitsky has plans for the next 25 years, as well.
“He has big thoughts. He wants to do big things,” the younger rabbi said.