By Manny Frishberg, JTNews Correspondent
Seattle’s Northend neighborhoods have been taking on more of a Jewish flavor as the community has blossomed. Both the number of Jews living in the area and the scope of businesses and services that have sprouted up to serve them have contributed to a richer Jewish life in recent years.
The past dozen years’ growth in the Jewish community throughout the Puget Sound area has outstripped the booming population by nearly two to one, expanding from approximately 29,000 in 1990 to over 37,000 by the year 2000 — an increase of 27 percent. This contrasts the 15 percent average population growth for the Seattle Metro area reported by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Several communities around the Seattle area have benefited from this growth, but nowhere has the rise in population been greater than in the neighborhoods north of the Ship Canal, from Ravenna to Wedgewood, to the Seattle city limits and beyond.
The Federation-sponsored Jewish Demographic Survey found the Jewish community in Seattle’s Northend and the adjacent suburbs has gone up by nearly 60 percent, from an estimated 8010 people in 1990, to 12,611 by the turn of the millennium. The Northend community is not only the fastest growing in the area, but the largest overall, with nearly 1,500 more people than in the Eastside.
Michele Yanow has been in a unique position to watch the growth and change in the Northend for over the last decade. Co-founder and former owner of Tree of Life Judaica Bookstore (she relinquished her interest in the store at the first of the year), she is also a board member of Congregation Beth Shalom, which, she said, has seen its congregation double in that time.
“I think it’s really a physical, geographical Jewish community, comparable to Jewish communities that you would see in cities that are thought of as more Jewish places — like Los Angeles or certain cities back east — places that have traditionally been known to have a strong Jewish community,” she said. “I think the growth of all of the institutions on the Northend and just the sheer numbers of people that continue to move into this neighborhood really make it feel like a Jewish place.
“This is really the place, not only in numbers of people, but diversity. I’m personally very proud of the fact that within whatever this small number of square miles is, we have synagogues of every denomination,” Yanow added.
From synagogues to schools to the Stroum Jewish Community Center, institutions have been looking at ways to adapt to the changes, which virtually everyone looks at positively. At nearby Temple Beth Am, program coordinator Cecily Kaplan said they have experienced a dramatic rise in participation as well.
“In the last six years we’ve doubled in size,” Kaplan said. “We’re close to 800 [families] and six, seven years ago, we were at 420.”
The synagogue, which just completed an expansion of its facilities less than 10 years ago, is starting to feel cramped again. “This should be one of our worst problems,” Kaplan laughed. “It’s wonderful to have a vibrant community.”
The challenge, she said, has been to make not only an increasingly large and diverse membership feel a part of a welcoming community, but also “for people who are not necessarily affiliated but are living in this area to feel comfortable and connected, to coming when they see something they are interested in.” That could be adult education classes, meetings with local politicians sponsored by Beth Am’s social action committee or celebrating the tradition of Klezmer music with their annual Klezfest.
Recognizing that the growth in the community has also meant more people needing social services, Jewish Family Services director Ken Weinberg said, after 110 years, JFS will be opening their first Northend offices, “in cooperation with Temple Beth Am.”
Not counting preschoolers, which is a growing population in itself, the numbers of children in some form of Jewish education has topped 2,700. At the Seattle Jewish Community School, development director Sharon Perlin said that where a dozen years ago they struggled to fill their kindergarten through fifth grades, they no longer have enough slots for the kids that would like to attend.
“For the first time now, we’re not able to accommodate everyone who is looking for a day-school education in this neighborhood,” Perlin said. In just the last few months, she said the board has decided to double the number of places in the school, going from “one deep” — or one 20-student class per grade level — to two, while remaining an elementary school.
With 40 percent of the Jewish households in the area having moved here in the last 10 years, and more than half of Jews in the Puget Sound having no formal ties to the “organized Seattle Jewish community,” finding ways to attract the unaffiliated has become more of a focus in planning for the future, according to Asher Hashash, the Stroum JCC’s adult services director.
“I believe that even though the unaffiliated is very high, if we build it, they will come,” Hashash told the Jewish Transcript. “If we put the word out that something is happening, those that are mildly interested will consider coming and those that are suddenly interested will come.
“None of it is rocket science,” he said. “I’d like to put together forums on different topics — I’m interested in bringing people together.” Israeli dancing, Hebrew and Yiddish classes, with perhaps even a language-intensive “ulpan” in the summer, and Klezmer music events are all on Hashash’s list of things he would like to do, space permitting.
Among the options he is exploring are partnering with the existing institutions and renting space in the Eckstein, Meadowbrook or University Heights Community Centers.
“We want Jews to find a door into the community, whether it’s a community that they create themselves or it’s the Main Street community that’s already created. And we want to help Jews find their identity, via a class, via a happening, a celebration.
“A lot of this is still in the talking stages,” Hashash cautioned. “The bridge-building between organizations is going to take a little time — the time for organizations to agree about shared goals. And once you have shared goals, you still need to have your program staff try things out. So, things don’t necessarily succeed right away.”