Jccnv-Beth El Hebrew Congregation

A wonderful religious place to pray and to meet new friends. Lots of programs and activities during the year.

Really lovely congregation engaged in a lot of important social action for the community. Only complaint would be that a good percentage of the extra congregation events (things outside of regular services, like music concert events, some of the culture events, etc.) tend to price out a lot of young professionals, younger millennials and gen Z-ers, etc who can’t justify the extra expense, and would rather just not attend events rather than go through the embarrassment of pleading poverty with leadership. Unfortunately I don’t think this is an issue unique to Beth El, or even religious communities — rather, I think there are a lot of congregations of various faiths where the folks making the decisions tend to be older and much more established financially, and as a result they are sort of just disconnected (disconnected sounds harsh, maybe unaware is a nicer way to put it) to the realities of what makes something accessible (or not) to younger folks. I’d argue there’s the same issue within the fine arts community. I’ll admit, I don’t have a perfect fix for the issue, but I’d think it would be better to make things more accessible and use events to bring in more young people who might continue (or start) becoming more engaged in the community as a result—-rather than rely on a smaller cadre of more financially established regulars that wanes as folks grow older, retire & move, or sadly pass away.

A friendly place in Alexandria Va the is a reform temple. Open to all types of families atructures. Most of the time parking is plenty.

Lovely

Hi everyone/!.*~