Well, maybe that’s a bit too far to go for Passover, but I hope that it piques your interest to know that if, for some reason, you found yourself in those parts and wanted to attend shul, you actually could. That’s because the Jews of Benton County, the majority of whom work directly or indirectly for Wal-Mart, which is headquartered there, decided two years ago to form Congregation Etz Chaim. It’s the first synagogue in the county, which isn’t tremendously surprising, since the total Jewish population of Arkansas was estimated at 1700 in 2001.

The story of this remarkable congregation appeared in the New York Times just a few days ago. The article was emailed to me by my sister, who knew it would interest me, which it did, on several levels. As a native New Yorker and a longtime Philadelphia-area resident, living in an area where there are almost no other Jews is completely foreign to me. Consequently, Jewish communities in unlikely places—Bentonville, Arkansas surely qualifies—fascinate me. What must life be like for a Jew in such a place? Because there were so few Jews in the area, the line between what should have been secular public institutions and the practice of Christianity by an overwhelming majority of the inhabitants had blurred. Public schools had Christmas vacation, the town square was decorated only for Christmas, and one Jewish child came home from daycare with a picture of Jesus to color. The people of Benton County were profoundly unfamiliar with Judaism, but the members of Congregation Etz Chaim educated them. PTA meetings are no longer scheduled the night before Jewish holidays. The schools have a winter break. There’s a menorah in the town square when the holiday season rolls around, and there’s even a restaurant where knishes, matzo ball soup and latkes are served.

While no one will ever mistake Benton County, Arkansas for New York, Philadelphia or any other major American city which boasts a significant Jewish population, the Jews of Bentonville have made a home for themselves and have transformed the surrounding community in doing so, and this was accomplished by a congregation roughly the same size as our own.

That led me to contemplate what other parallels there might be, and I found a number of them. Unlike the Jews of Bentonville, we at BA won’t be starting from scratch when we move to Rodeph Shalom, but we will be establishing ourselves as a GLBT congregation within an overwhelmingly straight congregation, and while we won’t have to educate our new community about the practice of Judaism, it will be our responsibility to educate them about what it means for us to be GLBT Jews in a straight world. Frankly, I think that we’re going to have a much easier time of it than the Bentonville Jews did, because we’re moving to an environment which is already welcoming to us and where the bond we share—Reform Judaism—already exists, waiting for us to strengthen it together.

What affected me mostly deeply about this story was the fact that so few people were able to make such a profoundly positive change in their community. Most of what I’ve written and spoken about regarding our move to RS has emphasized the numerous benefits to BA as a result of our prospective partnership. What benefits will RS receive? There are some obvious benefits—increased membership, additional revenue, more potential volunteers—and some which are more subtle and more intangible yet no less significant: a greater awareness of GLBT issues, including our fight for marriage equality, which has received tremendous support from the URJ; an understanding that the concept of family can and does include those with whom we worship; and the knowledge that their willingness to open their doors to us without hesitation enabled us to survive as a congregation and add our unique and important voice to our Jewish community.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. I suspect that there will be additional benefits to both congregations which will become more apparent once we’ve moved to Broad Street. For now, it brings a smile to my face to know that if I should happen to find myself in Bentonville, Arkansas, I won’t have to worry about finding a minyan.

B’shalom,

Jocie

Back to top of this page.