Small-City Congregations Try to Preserve Rituals of Jewish Life
Although Irving Greenblum, an 81-year-old investor and retired furniture store owner, has four grown sons, he says he is “the last Greenblum who lives in Laredo,” a city on Texas’ border with Mexico.
That is because his sons — three trained as lawyers, one as an architect — have moved away and built their careers in larger Texas cities, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio....
Faced with an economic and social decline, shrinking synagogue membership and the eventual end of cemetery oversight, struggling Jewish communities like Laredo, Sumter, S.C., and Marion, Ind., are turning to a philanthropic matchmaker for help: David Sarnat, the developer of the Jewish Community Legacy Project, helps them find organizations in places with thriving Jewish populations that can take over cemetery maintenance and transfer or sell synagogues, religious scrolls and other assets when their members have moved away or died....
According to Jonathan D. Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, most Jews in the United States have migrated from small communities to large cities: he estimates that 85 percent of the country’s 5.2 million Jews live in 20 metropolitan areas, primarily on the East and West Coasts and in Sun Belt states....
The process of dismantling a community, experts say, is fraught with potential tensions involving both purse and heartstrings. Mark A. Raider, a professor of modern Jewish history at the University of Cincinnati, cited disagreements over disposition of material assets....
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That is because his sons — three trained as lawyers, one as an architect — have moved away and built their careers in larger Texas cities, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio....
Faced with an economic and social decline, shrinking synagogue membership and the eventual end of cemetery oversight, struggling Jewish communities like Laredo, Sumter, S.C., and Marion, Ind., are turning to a philanthropic matchmaker for help: David Sarnat, the developer of the Jewish Community Legacy Project, helps them find organizations in places with thriving Jewish populations that can take over cemetery maintenance and transfer or sell synagogues, religious scrolls and other assets when their members have moved away or died....
According to Jonathan D. Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, most Jews in the United States have migrated from small communities to large cities: he estimates that 85 percent of the country’s 5.2 million Jews live in 20 metropolitan areas, primarily on the East and West Coasts and in Sun Belt states....
The process of dismantling a community, experts say, is fraught with potential tensions involving both purse and heartstrings. Mark A. Raider, a professor of modern Jewish history at the University of Cincinnati, cited disagreements over disposition of material assets....