Queen Anne Jewish community goes its own way

At Kavana, planning for Rosh Hashana can get complicated.

The Queen Anne-based Jewish community, which is holding its first High Holy Days services this year, attracts people from each of the Jewish movements, as well as secular Jews and even those who aren't Jewish.

So, should they use a prayer book used by Reform congregations or Conservative? How could they best create a service "knowing people who sit in that service will have different backgrounds and access points," said Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum.

Those are the kinds of questions Kavana grapples with throughout the year, not just during the High Holy Days, which begin at sundown tonight with Rosh Hashana — the Jewish New Year — and end 10 days later with Yom Kippur — the Day of Atonement.

Kavana, which means "intention" in Hebrew, is a nearly two-year-old community whose members say synagogues, with their traditional programs and religious services as well as an emphasis on differences among Reform, Conservative and Orthodox branches, don't speak to them.

Kavana does not affiliate with one specific stream of Judiasm and, while there are services, equally important are activities such as art projects with one's children and home Shabbat dinners.

Kavana's emphasis is on finding ways to make Judaism meaningful in the day-to-day lives of those involved. It runs on a cooperative model, relying on volunteers and meeting in private homes or rented space at the Queen Anne Christian Church.

"From the beginning, what we were hearing was: 'It's hard to be young in a traditional congregation,' " said Nussbaum, 30, of Queen Anne.

Kavana is one of about 65 such communities that have been established nationwide to fill that need, forming what some call the "Jewish emergent" movement, according to Synagogue 3000, a Los Angeles- and New York-based leadership institute dedicated to revitalizing synagogue life.

The Jewish movement shares many characteristics with the Christian "emerging" or "emergent" church movement, which started about a decade ago. Generally, both movements are driven by people in their 20s to 40s who are trying to create innovative, more intimate communities. Though some are affiliated with specific denominations, many are not.

The formation of such Jewish groups "demonstrated the need of a lot of younger people who wanted to connect," said Joshua Avedon, director of communications for Synagogue 3000. "They loved summer camp or went to Israel and loved the experience there. And they wanted to replicate that here and knew they wouldn't find it in synagogues."

Indeed, only 25 percent of American Jews under age 35 are affiliated with synagogues, said Shawn Landres, director of research for Synagogue 3000.

Suzi LeVine, 37, a former Expedia executive and a founder of Kavana, had loved the hospitality and community she experienced while living in Israel. And while at Brown University, she was active in Hillel, the Jewish campus organization.

But when LeVine was about 35, with two kids, she realized she had outgrown Hillel. She looked at local synagogues, but "personally, I'm not so into services," she said. "I wanted a community like at Brown, where I could plug into it in a lot of different ways. I wanted a Hillel for adults."

After LeVine met Nussbaum, who was ordained as a Conservative rabbi, they found others like them and last year launched their first programs.

These days, Kavana has 80 "partners" in the co-op who work on teams such as technology or finance. "Everybody has to take on some roles," Nussbaum said.

Parents, for instance, have developed an education program for the family, not just for kids, "so parents can't just drop off their kids and say: 'Go get your injection of Judaism and I'm not involved at all,' " said Jeff Sprung, 48, a lawyer on Queen Anne with two young children.

Kavana doesn't see itself as competing with synagogues or other groups.

Both have something to offer, said Rebecca Cory, 35, a University of Washington researcher who goes to both Kavana and Congregation Beth Shalom, a Conservative synagogue.

"Temple Beth Shalom offers tremendous stability that Kavana as a new organization doesn't have," she said. "But the excitement of Kavana is in "creating our own Jewish experience."

But it can get tricky.

For Rosh Hashana, for instance, a team at Kavana looked at several prayer books before choosing one printed independently by a congregation in Canada. It has the traditional service in Hebrew, a Hebrew transliteration for those who want to sing along but don't know Hebrew, an English translation, and poetry and art.

"We try to make accommodations for as broad a swath as possible," Nussbaum said.

Conversations about keeping kosher are frequent. For now, the community has agreed that common activities will feature vegetarian food. When meeting at someone's home, they try to match guests who keep kosher with hosts who do.

Nussbaum estimates that about 200 are regular attendees. If the group becomes too large, pods will be spun off in different parts of town.

"We want to help [people] make intentional Jewish decisions for themselves, about how they want to live their lives, how they want to make ethical, moral decisions, how they want to engage in the world."