Our Delaware is a monthly series that will explore the history of communities and the institutions that serve them around the state. To suggest a potential topic for an upcoming feature, email Editor-In-Chief Jacob Owens.
Why Should Delaware Care?
For decades, the Jewish population in southern Delaware has worked to become a pillar of the Sussex County community. The county’s first synagogue only opened less than 30 years ago, and the Jewish community has only grown since its first Passover Seders.
Nearly three decades ago, the Cape Gazette published an advertisement for Jewish people in Sussex County who wanted to celebrate Passover together.
About 100 people ultimately responded to the ad by attending first and second night Seders held at a Rehoboth Beach deli. There, they celebrated together the holiday that commemorates the slavery of the Israelites in Egypt and their ultimate exodus to freedom.
Those two Seders marked the start of the Seaside Jewish Community, which later became the only synagogue in Sussex County until the establishment of Chabad of Southern Delaware in 2022.
Before that advertisement, some would travel far for religious celebrations to areas, such as Wilmington, where there were multiple synagogues and a stronger sense of connection.
Joel Simon, a past president of Seaside who grew up in Wilmington, remembers that time as one when he tried to find a community. He moved to Sussex County in the early 1990s to teach at a school.
When he arrived, he was the only Jewish person at the school, he said, “and there was no established synagogue in the area.”
“I was kind of looking for Jewish connections,” he said.
Four years later, the ad appeared in the Cape Gazette. And eventually Simon found the new group after the first Passover took place in 1997.
Today, that origin story is known widely across the Seaside Jewish Community synagogue, which now has about 500 members.
Despite the growth, the same goal of connecting the community remains, said Lawrence “Larry” Krevor, president of the congregation.
“We’ve grown dramatically from those small origins to around 500 members, about 300 families,” Krevor said. “It’s a different challenge when you’re bigger, but we endeavor to try to maintain as much of that connection and closeness as we can.”
Growing the Jewish population in the synagogue
The Seaside Jewish Community’s growth has surged in recent years.
In 2020, it launched a $1.4 million expansion and modernization project to its building that serves as a synagogue and gathering space in Rehoboth.
Two years later, the group hired Julie Danan, its first full-time rabbi.
Then, last year, the community members sat down to plan what they wanted the organization to look like in the near future. There was a concern that as they grew, the connections between members could weaken.
As a result of that strategic planning effort, the Seaside Jewish Community is looking to create a new initiative to maintain connectivity among members even as they grow, Krevor said.
“We do a really good job of bringing in members, a really good job of connecting them and helping them feel welcome. We may not do as good a job as time goes on,” Krevor said.
Despite having grown by hundreds of members since its first Seder, Krevor said the original mission of connecting the Jewish community remains.
Repairing the world
Seaside Jewish Community isn’t affiliated with any denominations, like Reform or Orthodox.
Because of different upbringings among the synagogue’s members, Krevor and Danan try to focus on living by Jewish values like tikkun olam – or repairing the world – when discussing topics, such as the Israel-Hamas war
“You can be Jewish and care about Judaism, but you can disagree on what the Israeli government might do at a particular time, or you may be very supportive, and it may change day to day,” Krevor said.
Danan added that the Israel-Hamas war and subsequent antisemitism have strengthened some people’s connection to Judaism and the pride they feel about being Jewish.
“They want this comfort of being with their community and to learn more about the heritage,” she said.
In 2022, 18% of Jewish community members in Delaware reported experiencing antisemitism, according to a survey by the Jewish Federation of Delaware and Brandeis University.
That same year also saw the number of antisemitic incidents nearly quadruple, as reported by The News Journal.
To combat possible cases of antisemitism, Seaside Jewish Community members participate in community outreach programs. Those include putting together backpacks for people who were recently incarcerated, or collecting leftover food from restaurants to bring to food banks.
While many of these services align with the Jewish value of tikkun olam, Krevor said he hopes these services show their Sussex County neighbors that the Jewish community is part of the “fabric of the community.”
“Isn’t that a good way to make people know, ‘Hey, these are our neighbors and friends. They’re not something else. They’re not the other.’ That’s an important part to me of what we do,” he said.
Connections outside of the synagogue
That recognition hasn’t always been easy.
It wasn’t until January 2023 that Seaside Jewish Community was recognized as part of the Lewes-Rehoboth Association of Congregations, a nonprofit organization established in 1983 with the goal of collaborating to gather money, food, and clothing donations for the broader community.
The vote in 2023 marked the end of a 17-year conversation about opening the Lewes-Rehoboth Association of Congregations’ membership to all congregations within the Cape Henlopen School District area that share a passion for living out their faith by aiding the community.
Before the vote in 2023, the Association of Congregations representatives rejected a proposal to include non-Christian faith groups as members.
Beth Cohen, who was the part-time rabbi of Seaside Jewish Community, started the Cape Henlopen Progressive Interfaith Alliance in 2014 because of the rejection, and welcomed several Association of Congregations members.
In 2018, the Association of Congregations voted 23-14 to limit the membership to Christian churches. But it did claim on its website then that it welcomed volunteers and provided grants and other help to anyone, regardless of religious affiliation.
Despite the inability to become an official member of the Lewes-Rehoboth Association of Congregations, Cohen and Seaside Jewish Community members volunteered and helped lead the association’s efforts.
Today, the Seaside Jewish Community and the Unitarian Universalists of Southern Delaware are the two non-Christian members of the Lewes-Rehoboth Association of Congregations
As Seaside Jewish Community continues to grow its congregation and its overall presence in Sussex County, Krevor and Danan aim to continue building connections outside of their synagogue.
“We are really part of the fabric of this community and it’s not as known as perhaps we ought to have it be,” Krevor said.