by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

March 26, 2009

In a bid to lure young Orthodox couples and families to West Orange, Congregation Ahawas Achim B’nai Jacob and David just held its second annual Discover West Orange Shabbat.

“The goal is to show people West Orange is a nice community,” said Brad Shulman, who cochaired the March 13-14 event.

Among the eight couples who came were Jason and Jackie Demby, who live on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. They felt the Shabbaton offered a critical insider’s eye to the community. “It’s important for us to experience services and Shabbat, and see the rabbi, and get a sense of how he runs the synagogue and his sermons, and get a sense of his energy,” said Jason. “It gives us a sense of what the community is like.”

The Discover weekends, which usually consist of Shabbat hospitality and some programming at the synagogue, are becoming an increasingly common way to attract young Orthodox families to suburban communities, especially on the East Coast.

In some cases, as in Oceanside, NY, where the Young Israel started holding such events in 2007, the goal is to reinvigorate a graying population; in others, like Silver Spring, Md., organizers were just putting their best foot forward to attract young couples.

‘Pleasant experience’

For AABJ&D, the idea is simply to plant seeds in the minds of young families who may overlook their community in favor of better known metropolitan-area Orthodox communities like those in Teaneck or Passaic.

Ze’ev Ya’akov Kesselman and his wife, Shoshana, came to last year’s Discover West Orange Shabbat from their home in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn.

“West Orange never appeared on my radar; it was never a possibility,” Ze’ev Kesselman said. He was more familiar with communities on Long Island and farther down the East Coast. After his wife saw a message on a community Yahoo post advertising the West Orange Shabbaton, he said, the couple discussed it and decided to give it a “try-out.” They liked the experience so much they came back for a second Shabbat several months later, after attending similar event in Silver Spring.

On Feb. 27 they moved into their West Orange home with their two children, two-year-old Zvi and one-year-old Liba.

The Kesselmans were drawn to the congregation and the town by aesthetics, prices, and the values of the community.

“We were looking for an Orthodox community that is warm and welcoming; not exactly open-minded but accepting of different groups or dynamics, with young couples, and in commuting distance to Manhattan and Brooklyn,” said Kesselman. The couple also liked “the trees and the grass — coming from Brooklyn, that was important.”

The Kesselmans were also looking for a community that is “less materialistic” than some others they had explored.

According to Shulman, a second family who attended last year’s Discover event will be moving in shortly.

“With the economy the way it is, we didn’t know what to expect this year — whether people would want to buy homes now. We were pleasantly surprised,” said Shulman, who helped plan this year’s event. “If we could get two families again, that would be great. But at this point, the purpose is to expose West Orange to people and spread the word. It’s not a time-share event where we’re pressuring people,” he said.

“We want West Orange to be in the back of people’s minds so when they’re ready to move, they will remember the pleasant experience they had here.”

And that’s exactly where people like the Dembys fit in. They haven’t decided yet whether or not to sign their Manhattan apartment lease for another year when it expires in July. But if they decide to move, they will take another look at West Orange as well as at at least one other community where they spent a Shabbat. Although they had heard of West Orange through the grapevine, Jason Demby said, “We really didn’t know anything about the community until we came for the Shabbaton.”

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