In the 1950s, the community bought land but didn't build a community center. Instead, the sum of the parts has remained greater than the whole. We've got three very distinct communities here. We have Saturday lunch weekly. A lot of things are going on on Shabbat.
Kids are in the building.
Temple Beth El, a 350-household Reform congregation, emphasizes adult education, community volunteering and Holocaust programming. The Orthodox community has doubled in size since Rabbi Yisroel Gettinger arrived from Monsey, N.Y., in 1980 to lead the Hebrew Orthodox Congregation. His wife, Miriam Gettinger, is principal of the day school, which sees itself as balancing an Orthodox curriculum with a student body that includes some Conservative children, including Rabbi Friedland's. Just who is a Jewish child, however, is an issue of contention. The school enforces the traditional view of matrilineal Jewish descent.