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Finding a Shul That Fits

The Booths were longing for an affordable way to connect with other Jewish couples their own age, and in this they aren\'t alone.
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September 7, 2000

Steven and Leya Booth had to find a congregation, and they didn’t have a lot of time. As part of his conversion, Steven signed up for an Introduction to Judaism course at University of Judaism (UJ) last September. The instructor gave the class a specific assignment: Find a congregation to join before the course ended in March 2000.

The 29-year-old Valley couple, now newlyweds, had announced their engagement the month before and were each working full time and then some. Steven would finish the class and convert to Judaism less than two weeks before the wedding. The pressure was on.

“I was looking for a place where we would both be comfortable going, because I wanted to go a lot, and I wanted to bring her with me. And if she wasn’t comfortable, she wasn’t going to go,” Steven says.

The Booths were longing for an affordable way to connect with other Jewish couples their own age, and in this they aren’t alone. Many young newlyweds face issues similar to those that Steven and Leya wrestled with in their quest for a synagogue: How do you find a congregation that is inexpensive, close enough, welcoming, youth-oriented and with a level of observance that meets the expectations of both people?

Even in a city filled with synagogues, that search is not as easy as it would seem.Steven and Leya had been involved in Kosher Meet Market and Traveling Shabbat Singles, but that was when they were single. The affordable options they found for Jewish DINKs (dual income, no kids) were slim.

“There’s no Hillel environment for people who are married,” says Steven. “The Jewish community just doesn’t produce anything for people once they’re out of Hillel until they have enough money to be real contributors. That’s irksome.”

With $70,000 in student loan debt between them and a condo in Encino, the Booths were primarily focused on taking those first steps toward establishing their careers – each work and volunteer at least 60 hours every week. Low-cost membership is a primary concern for young couples like the Booths, since their finances are limited.

Steven and Leya also have jobs in the Jewish community, so they wanted to make sure that the congregation they joined would feel more like coming home than going back to work.

“I want a synagogue where I like the people and make actual friends, not just acquaintances, to go see movies and pray with,” Steven says.

The son of a Catholic mother and secular Jewish father, Steven didn’t know much about Judaism growing up. The closest thing the Orange County native had to a Bar Mitzvah was when his dad gave him a mezuzah for his 13th birthday. After graduating from UC Santa Cruz in 1997, Steven decided to pursue an MBA in nonprofit management at UJ to explore his Jewish heritage.

“Living in the dorms there, you’re eating kosher food, you’re around people doing Jewish things, you ask a lot of questions and they speak Hebrew at you all the time,” Steven says.

Two years into his MBA, Steven was working for Jewish National Fund and seeing Leya.

Leya, who is currently pursuing a master’s in special education at CSUN, grew up in the Valley attending a Conservative synagogue. Leya’s parents gave her the freedom to choose her own level of involve-ment when she was growing up but bristled when she told them she wanted to keep kosher and observe Shabbat regularly. After her confir-mation class folded, Leya dropped her Jewish involvement until college.

Hillel helped her rediscover everything she loved about Judaism. A decade later, Leya is still actively involved with Hillel at Pierce and Valley Colleges.

“I discovered through Hillel that I liked living Jewishly, and I wanted to give back to the Jewish community,” Leya says.

The Booths asked peers for recommendations and used the Web to explore their options, looking over a congregation’s site before stepping in the door. They considered seven congregations in all.

Distance was a major issue. Steven and Leya are both Reconstructionist, but the idea of commuting over the hill to either of the Westside congregations was out of the question.

“We definitely wanted to find Conservative, because we weren’t going to find Reconstructionist here,” says Leya.

Steven wanted to find a smaller congregation with a warm, welcoming atmosphere where he could participate during the service.

At the first disqualified congregation, Steven says the cantor’s “singing was beautiful and wonderful, but I couldn’t match his range. I couldn’t sing along with him, and so I felt left out. I want to participate.”About another, he says the congregation had an “amazing cantor, but it was like being in an opera.”

For Leya, the congregation has to walk the walk.

“If I’m going to go to a Conservative synagogue, I want it to be more Conservadox,” she says.Leya looked for one of three tell-tale signs to disqualify a Conservative congregation: if they said the second line of the “Shema” out loud, if they stood during “Kaddish” or if there was applause during a sermon.

Leya says she was turned off by one congregation when she saw a photographer, videographer and people signing a wedding guestbook at 4 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon.

“That just freaked me out,” she says.

Steven and Leya say that children are at least three years away, so child-care programs and Hebrew schools weren’t on their minds yet.

“I really wasn’t thinking kids,” Leya says. “I was thinking where we are right now. I’m not thinking past two years.”

“Both of us rejected almost everything. When Steven found one he was happy with, ironically, it was something I was happy with,” Leya says.

The Booths ended up choosing Temple Ramat Zion in Northridge. Within 15 minutes of sitting in the synagogue, they knew they’d found the right one.

“It’s the way the rabbi runs it,” Steven says of Rabbi Steven Tucker. “He does the service in Hebrew, it’s very traditional and the people are friendly.”

Steven says that he was also enthralled by Tucker’s sermons – another major selling point.

The couple has since become actively involved with committees at the temple, and while Ramat Zion meets most of their needs, the Booths say they’re disappointed that the congregation lacks a chavurah for DINKs in their 20’s and 30’s.

“As we’re getting closer to 30, most of the 30-something chavurot are parents with young children,” says Leya. “We’re not quite ready for that group.”

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