At Beth Israel Congregation of Chester County, the shul’s 121-year history is a defining quality, but it’s not everything.
While community members are proud that their congregation has been around for that long, they are also looking toward the future and willing to adjust with the times.
Their dues structure is a good example. Last year, Beth Israel went from a standard payment to a system in which members pay what they can or what they want to.
Since that change, new families have joined, helping to steady the congregation’s membership in lieu of older members who have passed.
While synagogue president Cynthia Blair-Miller said those families joining can’t necessarily be attributed to the change to the dues structure, she did say that there hasn’t been a single negative comment brought to her about the new payment plan. She said that, in general, members have aligned their payments with their budgets.
At Beth Israel, there are always new ideas floating around, and the synagogue is happy to try them.
Blair-Miller has been a member since 1980. She joined for a simple reason: She was welcomed by the congregation and found that everyone there truly wanted to be.
The current president especially liked that Beth Israel was ahead of its time in gender equality.
“Forty years ago, the fact that Beth Israel included women in the minyan and had a female rabbi was really important and a little more unusual in those days,” she said. “I didn’t want to join a congregation where women were not going to be counted in the minyan.”
Rabbi Jon Cutler said that that tradition continues today, with the Beth Israel community still welcoming Jews of every background. During his tenure, which began in 2015, two entire families — not individuals — have converted to Judaism at Beth Israel.
“We have Asian Americans in our congregation; we have African Americans in our congregation. It really transcends race. The common denominator at Beth Israel is being Jewish,” Cutler said. “I would say that 50% of our congregation is interfaith.”
Cutler added that the culture at Beth Israel seems to rally these interfaith couples and help them become more Jewish.
“What I find is that, actually, the non-Jewish partner is more invested in the synagogue than the Jewish partner. [There are] two women, who are not Jewish, married to Jews, one [of which] is the head of the sisterhood and the other one who is on the religious school committee,” he said.
In fact, Blair-Miller said that her tenure as president hasn’t even been one of change, for the most part. It’s been about staying the course.
“I wasn’t out to revamp the place,” she said. “I just felt that I wanted to be involved in it and have some voice in where we went and what we did.”
While the synagogue is progressive in many ways, it is still very much Conservative. Cutler said that members are proud that the vast majority of b’nai mitzvah lead not just their portion, plus a few prayers, but the entire service. The rabbi said that a goal at Beth Israel is to help Jewish children enter adulthood by giving them more responsibility.
“It goes back to my philosophy of empowering and investing in, not just adults, but children,” Cutler said.
Blair-Miller said that the shul is focused on becoming more accessible for children’s education. To that end, the congregation has dramatically discounted the price of religious school for members. At Beth Israel, there is a deep tradition of prayer and worship. The synagogue wants to expand its mission in other areas of Jewish life, too.
“We’re building community,” Blair-Miller said. “We’re not just a place to come for prayers on Friday night and Saturday morning.”
In her experience, today’s young adult Jews are less observant than past generations. Many don’t see synagogue membership as a necessary component of their Jewish life, but Blair-Miller said she thinks that that can be attributed to a misunderstanding of the function of a shul.
“I know that Judaism is changing a lot, and synagogues seem to be less important to a lot of people, because many Jews today are, I guess, more secular, so they don’t necessarily see a synagogue as a critical component. But the reality is, it’s a lot more than that. It is a community. It’s a place where you have people who support you when you need them to, where you can celebrate. You can have good times; you can make good friends. You can raise the next generation,” she said.
Blair-Miller’s tenure as president will end in June of 2026. As she looks ahead and thinks about what she wants to see, the president hopes that the synagogue will serve a similar role for generations of Philadelphia Jews.
“Beth Israel has been around for 120 years. We were formed in 1904, and certainly my goal is that 120 years from now, my great-grandchildren will be, if not members, [aware] about it and remember [Beth Israel] fondly because even if they’re living in who knows where, it will still be here supporting the Jewish community of Chester County,” she said.