In the summer of 2024, Leora Kling Perkins was hired as Ohev Shalom of Bucks County’s new rabbi. She was replacing Rabbi Eliott Perlstein, who had served the synagogue since it opened in 1976.
At the time of her hiring, Kling Perkins had spent the previous five years at Temple Emunah in Lexington, Massachusetts. The Boston area native had also traveled through stops in Boston, New York, Maine and Colorado. Like many rabbis in their 30s, she was on a peripatetic journey, but she was looking for a professional home.
She has found it in Bucks County.
The Churchville resident lives a mile from Ohev Shalom and walks to work. More importantly, the warm, inclusive qualities she noticed in the shul during her hiring process have been as real as they seemed.
“I feel so blessed to be here. The community has just really been so welcoming. It’s been a beautiful fit,” she said.
Two years ago, Kling Perkins was joining a congregation with about 400 member families. She didn’t want to fix an institution that worked. In June 2024, she told the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent that her goal during her first year would be to get to know people.
But over the course of doing so, she has started to make her own contributions. The young mother of two has focused specifically on young families.
Ohev Shalom has no preschool at the moment, but its religious school has about 100 students. There’s a strong young family contingent, and Kling Perkins has been working to make it stronger.
She’s in the school almost every Sunday morning with different classes. She’s also trying to give young families other reasons to come to the synagogue.
A program called Ohevteenies, for kids under 3 to sing and do art projects, done in conjunction with jkidphilly, was in existence before Kling Perkins started. But the new rabbi expanded it to include a Friday morning Shabbat version.
The Richboro synagogue also had Tot Shabbat programs before Kling Perkins arrived, but the new rabbi turned them into a monthly event. That gave Ohev Shalom three different activities for young families that weren’t religious school.
“We want to give them different ways to connect with each other,” the rabbi said.
Another point of emphasis has been adult education. Kling Perkins teaches a class in the middle of the day, which is mostly for retirees, and a monthly class at night, which attracts people who work during the day.
For the night class, she is using a curriculum on modern Zionism provided by the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. Around 30 people attend each session. Last year, she taught courses on medical ethics and the Torah and technology.
“Not everyone connects through prayer,” the rabbi said. “For some people, that intellectual stimulation is what they need.”
The rabbi likes to target activities toward specific groups within Ohev Shalom’s population, she said. The synagogue is big enough that it will always have events, like a Chanukah dinner and a Shabbat barbecue, that transcend demographics and attract many different congregants.
But more specific activities can get people to come more often. This emphasis is in line with what Ohev Shalom started doing even before Kling Perkins’ arrival.
A 2022 Philadelphia Jewish Exponent story detailed how Executive Director Barbara Glickman, who remains in that role, started a walking club, the first lifestyle club in the synagogue’s history. Another story detailed the spring 2024 efforts of Anya Surnitsky, the wife of the shul’s president, to launch the Belonging Initiative, which organizes book groups, podcast discussion clubs and wine-tasting events, among other activities, for Jews who are less observant.
“My focus is really helping to build Jewish community in whatever way works for people,” Kling Perkins said.
The rabbi also said she wants to continue the “welcoming, caring” energy that attracted her to Ohev Shalom.
“I certainly hope to continue these initiatives,” she said. “It’s really about just continuing to find different ways to connect people with each other.”