Beth Israel Office Manager Mikayla Losanowych isn’t Jewish. In fact, during her interview at the synagogue, she asked the staff “what a Shabbat is,” which she recalled with laughter.
But the community at the synagogue in Media is so kind and welcoming that Losanowych has become part of the family.
“My family comes to Purim. My sister loves the clackers and being able to yell whenever anyone says ‘Haman,’” she said. “My brother thought it was so much fun and my dad loved it too — it’s just such a great environment.”
Congregation Beth Israel is a Reconstructionist synagogue that has 150 member families and has been around since 1925, when it was founded as the first Jewish congregation in Media. The community has operated in a few different locations but has always maintained a welcoming environment. The congregation moved into its current home on South New Middletown Road in 1997.
Nathan Martin has served as associate rabbi since 2017. The synagogue is unique in the fact that it has two rabbis — Martin serves alongside Rabbi Linda Potemken, who has been with Beth Israel since 1997. Martin said that the system came about partly out of practicality. He had been serving about 20% of the time in order to give Potemken a weekend off every once in a while. At one point, she proposed the idea of sharing the position to the board, and board members liked it.
“I think they like the idea of having two different voices. There’s been interesting synergy between us. We get to each bring our own style, but we work closely together. We get to consult a lot,” Martin said. “I think the congregation benefits. They get more rabbi out of their rabbi, one might say.”
Martin said that Beth Israel led a workshop at a recent Reconstructionist convention that shared their method of two leading rabbis with other congregations. He said that, in his mind, the main benefits are that the rabbis are less isolated, that the junior gets to learn from a mentor while the senior gets to teach a mentee and that the rabbis are less burnt out, which was especially beneficial in 2020.
“It was a very challenging time. We worked very hard — we did a lot of pastoral outreach, services, teaching — but the fact that there was time where I was off one weekend and Rabbi Potemken was off another helped us survive the pandemic more robustly than others potentially,” Martin said. “And I find that even now when we’re sort of past the pandemic, it just helps to not be on all the time. I feel more fresh and present.”
Losanowych said that both rabbis are kind and available for the member families, and were particularly welcoming when she was starting out. She said that Potemken brought her into her office early on and answered any and all questions about Judaism, synagogues and more that she could think of.
“Rabbi Nathan and Rabbi Linda are both so great. They are always there to lend a helping hand or be someone to talk to,” she said. “They both put so much work in.”
Martin said that there are three components that make Beth Israel unique. The first is the 150-family unit size, which he said promotes “a kind of informality that some people really appreciate and are drawn to.”
He also said that, despite a small full-time staff, Beth Israel manages to “punch above its weight” because of its large and committed base of volunteers.
“When you are active, involved and engaged, it gives you a sense of both connectedness to other people and it builds your community organizing muscle,” Martin said. “That helps people become more community-oriented by being part of an active community — it’s self-reinforcing.”
Martin also mentioned the unique location of Beth Israel.
“The land that we’re on was part of an orchard, and it’s a lovely setting. They provide us with corn stalks for our sukkah and soil for our garden,” he said. “I love that we have this relationship with the orchards, because it’s a lovely place to be.”
Martin said it’s the right place for him. What he’s always thinking about, he said, is how to spread that message to others.
“There’s a lot of demographic changes happening in the broader Jewish community, and I think one of the things we think about is how we continue to evolve and change so that we remain meaningful and relevant for families who may have a different way of being Jewish than their parents or grandparents,” he said.
