Rabbi Geri Newburge of Main Line Reform Temple-Beth Elohim initially joined the synagogue in 2014, but wasn’t a full-time member of the clergy until a year later. For some, a trial year would be a burden. For Newburge, it only assured her that this was exactly where she wanted to be.
“It was wonderful for me, because, as I like to say, we got to date for the year before we got married,” she said. “So, I felt like I had a much clearer perspective about what I was going to be walking into, and the people I’d be working with and the community I would be serving.”
At Main Line Reform Temple, Newburge found what generations of Jews have discovered at the Wynnewood synagogue: a busy, happening hub of Jewish life filled with passionate congregants.
Executive Director Lynne Balaban has only been in that role at the synagogue for a year, but she said that she has found something similar in her new community.
“We joke around that we are open 365 days of the year and almost always have something going on, and to be in a place that is thriving and busy and full of light was an offer I couldn’t pass up,” Balaban said.
The synagogue has been around since 1952, when 55 families gathered to found it. Just two years later, Main Line Reform Temple had 350 member families. They moved into their current home in 1960, with large-scale renovations coming to the structure 20 years ago.
Mary Kamplain is the president of the synagogue, and she said that when she joined with her family more than two decades ago, she quickly learned about a tradition of service to each other and the greater good.
“There is a strong legacy of lay leadership here and plenty of opportunities to get involved,” she said. “I must get something from the hands-on doing because I’ve just kept doing it. I’ve been very active in sisterhood, and I’ve been on the board for a long time, and I like the way we all work together.”
Kamplain said one of the qualities that first attracted her family to the synagogue was its strong preschool. That was in the early 2000s, and the same can be said today. The preschool recently expanded due to demand, with two new classrooms being added for this fall. Last year, the school offered an infant program for the first time. A key element of the approach at the Main Line Reform Temple preschool is that parents are an integral part of the decision-making.
“They are partners with our teaching staff to create programs and opportunities, both for the children and for themselves, so that they create that sense of community. We hope and we want that community to be strong and to carry through to when they join us in religious school, and eventually our high school programs,” Balaban said. “We want them to celebrate their life cycle events here, and when we get them started here as babies, it’s a really wonderful thing.”
The school curriculum keeps the kids happy, too — as do updates like the planned playground renovations, which Kamplain said are coming soon.
At Main Line Reform Temple, there is something for everyone. There are numerous adult education courses and events, from holiday celebrations to author visits and concerts. Newburge said one of her favorite activities is the movie club. Called “Keeping it Reel,” the club was formed during the pandemic in the absence of the in-person movie group that had to be canceled due to pandemic protocols. Now, it has evolved into a regular, once-a-month club that draws a couple dozen people on Monday nights.
“It’s a really wonderful sense of community,” Newburge said.
The rabbi said that this time of year is especially wonderful at the synagogue. As the calendar begins to change from summer to fall and school gets back in session, Main Line Reform Temple comes alive again.
“Everybody’s off to the four corners of the globe over the summer, but as the kids come back for early childhood education, seeing all those little people is very sweet and very invigorating,” Newburge said. “And then when we have hundreds of religious school kids coming back through the building on Sunday mornings and on Tuesday evenings, and of course the High Holy Days, I always think that’s something that’s really special about September — when you are all back together again in the sense of community.”
