Zion-Jerusalem

Rabbi and Founder:
Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum
Executive Director: Ruti Doron
Community and Operations Manager:
Laurence Berman
Zion – An Eretz Israel Community
PO Box 7559
9107402 Jerusalem
Phone: 054-4998380 (from Israel)
From USA: +972-54-4998380
E-mail: welcome@zion-jerusalem.org.il
Web: zion-jerusalem.org.il

Kehilat Zion – An Eretz Israel Community in Jerusalem

Kehilat Zion is a community of Israeli Jews of varied backgrounds, beliefs, customs, and practices, gathering together to re-dream Jerusalem as a meeting point for all. Zion provides the opportunity for many to pray and celebrate Judaism in a way that feels authentic and relevant to them, often for the first time in their lives, within a community deeply rooted in tradition and Jewish heritage. Within a few years of its inception, Kehilat Zion became a unique inspirational community for Jews and our friends in faith – in Israel and around the world, paving the way through prayer, social justice, and study to a Jerusalem of tolerance and hope.

Zion Seeks to Re-Dream Jerusalem by:

Building a Welcoming Community and Creating an Israeli Language of Prayer

Zion provides the opportunity for Jews of different backgrounds and identities to pray and celebrate Judaism in a way that feels authentic to them. Our motto to “come as you are” invites growth in the realm of prayer, study, and social justice, while being surrounded by others who are doing the same. Men and women, Orthodox and secular, Reform and Conservative, Sephardi and Ashkenazi are all welcome to participate and lead in an egalitarian setting.

Learning Together

Kehilat Zion’s network of batei midrash, or houses of learning, is rooted in our core value of building a pluralistic Jerusalem based on mutual respect, knowledge and hope. Currently, our most popular learning programs are the Interfaith Beit Midrash, which brings together members of Kehilat Zion and members of the Hebrew-speaking Catholic Community of Jerusalem once a month to study text together, and Vehadarta, a study program in Hebrew and English led by and for Zion’s senior cohort, who meet to find meaning in aging together.

Bridging Faiths in the Public Sphere

In a tradition initiated and organized by Kehilat Zion, we meet three times a year to bring light and build bridges via prayer at Jerusalem’s First Station outdoor venue. Believers, our annual Jerusalem Day interfaith prayer event that envisions what Jerusalem can be for all, has become a well-known and loved cultural and spiritual experience. Other events in the public sphere include our interfaith Chanukah candle lighting and a multi-denominational selichot event preceding Yom Kippur.

Innovating Social Justice Project

Kehilat Zion feels its responsibility to deepen to language of hesed, or loving-kindness, in Jerusalem, as a core value. To that end, we engage in tikkun olam together through social justice initiatives that are born in the community and which succeed as a result of activists and volunteers from within our midst. Among our initiatives: a significant project supporting young asylum seekers who arrived in Israel years ago as unaccompanied minors via “adoption” by community members and friends, and a multi-faith second-hand clothing store led by volunteers from Zion, as well as Christian and Muslim partners, with proceeds providing support for the disadvantaged in all three communities in Jerusalem.

What people say about us…

“Old, formal, modes of rote ritual and worship appear to be proving less attractive and hence are in decline, not only among the younger generation. This is not due to loss of faith. Rather, more and more people of all ages and backgrounds are seeking meaningful ways of communicating with the Divine Spirit, of finding spiritual meaning and uplift in revised, renewed forms of community and communal worship. They seek each other out in order to collaborate in this search for a new, satisfying, uplifting mode of prayer and study. Now some of us are witnessing and participating in the birth of such a pioneering effort, Zion, led by a charismatic leader who is learned, creative and profoundly spiritual. This is a true renaissance.”
Prof. Alice Shalvi, recipient of the Israel Prize for lifetime achievements and unique contributions to Israeli society, Zion Chairperson

“For the last few years, except on the Yamim Noraim (Days of Awe), I have been praying alone, not in a synagogue or with any community. The news about Kehillat Zion’s birth is very exciting to me, because it gives me a chance to find a home where I can pray with other open hearts, in a community of people with similar mind and heart desires.”
Avi Har-Tuv, psychotherapist

“For many years our family has been searching for a community of true Jewish Pluralism, which would embrace the Sephardic traditions from which we come; which would engage us in the making of chessed not in words but in everyday deeds; and which would enable us to live a Jewish life of caring for one another in the State of Israel.”
Ilanit Baruchi, vice principal Re’ut High school

“I dream of a community that would reach out with that same compassion taught to me by Savta Leah from Poland and Savta Channa from Morocco, where I can enter as I am, pray as I am, where my boys could sit on my lap as they sing their prayers, where I can learn seriously, where I can renew my tradition out of free will, and grow.”
Orit Raz, filmmaker and video therapist

Join us in dreaming and creating together.