By Leyna Krow, Assistant Editor, JTNews
On the evening of Dec. 26, 15 Ravenna Kibbutz residents and regulars gathered in the living room of House Aleph to reflect on the impact the Moishe House organization, which has helped to fund the Ravenna Kibbutz since it first opened in 2007, has had on their home lives, social lives, and Jewish lives.
“I really had a hard time connecting to Judaism before I moved to Seattle. This is the first time I’ve been able to find a community that I relate to,” said Mai Li Pittard after recounting the first time she attended a Moishe House-sponsored event at the Kibbutz.
This was not just idle nostalgia, but rather a eulogy of sorts. As of the beginning of January, the Ravenna Kibbutz is no longer an affiliate of Moishe House.
Moishe House has provided both essential funds as well as programming direction and support to the Kibbutz for the last two years. Parting ways with the Oakland, Calif.-based organization will mark a major sea change for the Kibbutz.
Resident Zara Leigh Friedman summed up the role of Moishe House as instrumental to the Kibbutz’s early success.
“Look at this cool thing we’ve created,” she said. “That wouldn’t have been possible without the Moishe House money. That’s something that’s been very nice.”
Joel Rothschild, Ravenna Kibbutz visionary and co-founder, described the decision for Moishe House and the Ravenna Kibbutz to separate as mutual, although one that was made a little sooner than Kibbutz organizers might have hoped.
“The [Moishe House partnerships] seem to last about two years. Now that the Kibbutz is on a longer-term trajectory, the partnership makes less sense,” he said.
David Cygielman, executive director for Moishe House, concurred that the duration of support is limited for most of the houses around the country his organization funds. With the Ravenna Kibbutz, it was simply a matter of divergent visions, he said.
“The Ravenna Kibbutz is doing really well, and we’re happy about that, but it’s larger than the idea of Moishe House,” Cygielman said. “We talked with residents and decided it would be great for the Kibbutz to continue with its current vision and for Moishe House to create a new house in Seattle with its own identity.”
The Moishe House organization provides money to 29 Jewish communal houses in cities around the world in exchange for a promise that those houses will use the money to put on a certain number of pre-approved events for local Jewish young adults between the ages of 21-30. This was a great arrangement for the Ravenna Kibbutz when it was first starting out, Rothschild said, but as the Kibbutz has grown, many of its members are now outside of the Moishe House age range, and organizers increasingly felt like they were organizing events just to meet Moishe standards rather than putting on functions that excited them personally.
Cygielman said Moishe House has only just begun looking for a new location — and new resident organizers — in Seattle. There are no firm plans for when or where the new house will be up and running, or if it will materialize at all.
For the Ravenna Kibbutz, however, forgoing its Moishe House partnership also means forgoing much of its income.
Kibbutz organizers hope to make up the difference through a time-honored Jewish tradition: A fundraising campaign. The campaign will launch Jan. 30 with a benefit party, to be followed by a pledge drive.
Although many Jewish organizations both locally and nationwide rely heavily on donations from participants, this is the first time the Ravenna Kibbutz has asked community members for money to keep programs running. In fact, in the past, even most “off-campus” Kibbutz events like movies, ice skating or bowling were free for attendees between the ages of 21-30.
“This is a fundamental operating change,” Rothschild said. “It makes us more institutional. We’re very aware of that.”
Rothschild stressed that although Kibbutz participants may have to start paying for their own skate rentals and movie tickets, he is committed to keeping the bulk of his organization’s events free.
“We want to maintain the policy of not charging at the door,” he said.
Rothschild said he was optimistic that through fundraising alone, the Kibbutz will be able to continue to provide the same level of programming.
Part of his optimism stems from the fact that the Kibbutz has very low operating costs. The Ravenna Kibbutz has no employees to pay, and all activities are volunteer run. The venue for most events is the Kibbutz itself; rent is paid by the residents. They rarely even bring in outside food, aside from the occasional pizza, choosing instead to feed guests with dishes concocted in Kibbutz kitchens.
“What our [fundraising] requests top out at is less than some families will spend next year on synagogue dues,” Rothschild said. “We’re not talking piles of cash.”
The separation from Moishe House is just one of a handful of significant changes the Kibbutz has undergone since it first opened its doors in the fall of 2007.
The Ravenna Kibbutz began with four people living in a single house on a quiet cul-de-sac. Today, the Kibbutz occupies three houses and one apartment and boasts 18 residents.
“That’s a 400 percent rate of growth,” Rothschild said.
Rothschild said he doesn’t anticipate the coming years to be as growth-centric as the first two, however. Although individual housemates come and go, he said he’d like to see the Kibbutz stay around its current size, at least for the time being. The next phase in the Kibbutz’s development will be about communal ownership.
“The goal is to live up to our name, to be a permanent residential fixture with communal property,” Rothschild said. “This, of course, requires there to be property. Today, property at the kibbutz consists of some tables, chairs, and a projector.”
He’d like to see the Ravenna Kibbutz own the homes residents currently rent. The logistics are still being hammered out, but Rothschild said that as he and the other kibbutzniks approach the age when many people start thinking about owning homes, the prospect of having a stake in communal property becomes increasingly attractive.
He hopes the Kibbutz will have a concrete plan for acquiring the homes by this time next year.