Room to Grow : New Members Flock to Jewish Congregations in Santa Clarita Valley

SANTA CLARITA —  The oldest Jewish synagogue in the Santa Clarita Valley recently moved into a permanent home after 25 years of meeting in rented facilities--and coincidentally is enjoying a membership spurt along with many religious groups in the growing region.

Congregation Beth Shalom, affiliated with the religiously midstream Conservative branch of Judaism, now has about 165 dues-paying families, a net gain of about 30 in the past year.

“I just had two inquiries this morning about membership,” synagogue administrator Elyse Feldberg-Marton said Friday. She motioned toward her office phone, which was off the hook. “If I left the phone on the hook, I wouldn’t have time to talk,” she said.

The synagogue has grown, Feldberg-Marton said, despite the fact that its rabbi of 10 years left last year and the congregation moved two months ago from a more prominent commercial building on busy Lyons Avenue to a relatively isolated hillside site.

On the plus side, Feldberg-Marton said, Beth Shalom has a scenic view of mountains to the north and is located “smack dab in the middle of the city”--a growing community whose religious leaders recognize the possibilities for growth.

“Any congregation that puts some energy into reaching out to the community is going to grow,” said Lutheran Pastor Mary Jensen, the new president of the Santa Clarita Valley Interfaith Council.

“I see faith communities sprouting up everywhere,” said Jensen, who is co-host of “Faith Line,” a Sunday-night talk show on the valley’s radio KBET.

“Some older churches like St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church are building new sanctuaries and some relatively new groups are worshiping in rented schoolrooms, or like us in a shopping center.” Jensen’s Church of Hope added 22 families to its membership roll last year, she said.

Going north on Seco Canyon Road toward the intersection with Copper Hill Road in Saugus, motorists can see land cleared to the right for a new Catholic parish church and landscaped land to the left being readied for the Faith Baptist Church of Newhall. Pastor Tom Givens said Faith Baptist is struggling to meet the needs of a growing congregation, even with two services Saturday evening and three on Sunday morning.

Even the rented space vacated by Congregation Beth Shalom on Lyons Avenue was quickly occupied by Calvary Chapel of Santa Clarita, which held its first services there Feb. 4. “Just in the two weeks we’ve been here, we have grown in attendance from about 250 to 300 people,” said Pastor Tom DeSantis.

Santa Clarita’s only other synagogue has also enjoyed steady growth. Temple Beth Ami, aligned with the liberal Reform wing of Judaism, began eight years ago with 40 families and now has 80 on its rolls, said congregation President Vickie Kaplan.

Temple Beth Ami has a student rabbi from Hebrew Union College, Scott Hausman-Weiss, to lead services two weekends each month.

For many Jewish parents with young children, however, one of the important features of a synagogue is its religious school.

“We run a two-day-a-week religious school, ages 9 and up, preparing kids for bar mitzvah and a preschool for children 4 to 8,” said Kaplan. The temple rents space in a light-industrial area on Golden Valley Road.

At Congregation Beth Shalom’s new building--actually four modules linked to form one structure--the religious schools are growing as fast as the membership, from 117 children last year to 155 at present. The synagogue’s Sunday school is for kindergartners and first- and second-graders. Hebrew school for children in grades three through seven is held on Sunday mornings and two weekday afternoons.

“It is hard for families with two working parents to get their children to late-afternoon classes and also to put the school ahead of other activities such as soccer and baseball,” Feldberg-Marton said.

Like the city’s Reform synagogue, Congregation Beth Shalom has the services of a rabbi two weekends a month. Rabbi Rafael Goldstein has full-time duties in Los Angeles as director of Los Angeles Jewish AIDS Services, a subsidiary of the Jewish Federation Council. Cantor Ronald E. Fordis leads Sabbath services on alternate weekends.

The synagogue held Hanukkah lighting ceremonies at its new site in December but did not begin full operations in the new building until last month. Two more modules will be arriving in June to expand the structure. Construction of a new sanctuary is about five years away, Feldberg-Marton said.

Relations between the city’s Reform and Conservative congregations are cordial, said spokeswomen for both groups.

And both say they hope to serve Santa Clarita’s entire Jewish community, estimated at between 3,000 and 5,000 people, with such events as Congregation Beth Shalom’s Purim carnival on March 3 and Temple Beth Ami’s annual Passover Seder, to be held April 6.

Santa Clarita wasn’t always so faith-friendly for Jews.

“When I moved here in 1975 from Encino, I used to have to go back to the San Fernando Valley to buy Passover supplies,” Feldberg-Marton recalled.

“But in recent years, you can’t go into a Santa Clarita Valley market without seeing large Passover food displays, and you soon find the shelves depleted if you don’t act quickly.”