36 Under 36: GIVING THE SYNAGOGUE A FACELIFT

Zachary Thacher, 34

by Jewish Week special report

Zachary Thacher, 34
‘Nearista’ blogger connecting downtown Jews with egalitarian minyan

In 2002, Zachary Thacher was tiring of his local Conservative synagogue, where he found it difficult to meet people in such a “daven and dash” environment. Unable to find a more intimate setting, he decided to establish Kol HaKfar (the Voice of the Village; Kolhakfar.org), an egalitarian minyan for worshippers in their 20s and 30s. Within weeks and without any operating budget, he had accumulated a steady group of congregants.
“I was really yearning to have a more unified downtown community, and I wanted to do it in a context of spirited communal prayer and davening,” Thacher says.

Kol HaKfar rotates between different members’ apartments, updating more than 270 members of their

weekly whereabouts through an e-mail list-serve. The service is entirely in Hebrew and tends to attract those who have spent time in Israel, Thacher says. To save money on recruiting, he and his friends use Yahoo! Groups, Blogger and Facebook to spread the word.

During the Lebanon war, Thacher began a blog called Nearista.com that aims to counter misinformation about Israel in the mainstream press. He also organized a fundraiser at the M&R Bar on the Bowery that raised $7,000 for the UJA-Federation of New York’s fund to support those in northern Israel.

But he’s most proud of his role in bringing a small community together week after week for prayers and socializing. “I’m a connector” for downtown Jewish young people, he says.

Day job: Thacher works as a project manager in the Web consulting industry, developing interactive services for other companies. Dream job: Thacher is an aspiring screenwriter trying to break into Hollywood. His goal: “Crafting a Bollywood inspired film about Jewish singles in New York.”
—Sharon Udasin

Joey Weisenberg, 26
Reviving ancient nigunim in Sabbath services

For years, young Jewish musicians in search of an aural history have turned to klezmer. Weisenberg, a mandolin player, is no exception. He plays in several klezmer revival groups today (good ones too: Michael Winograd Klezmer Ensemble; The Amazing Frosen String Quartet). But, Miller says, the klezmer revivalists “kind of gave it all to us. We didn’t have to work so hard.”

So he looked for a deeper musical tradition, and found it in centuries’-old rabbinic hymns. Now, as music director for Kane Street Synagogue in Brooklyn, he incorporates these hymns into Sabbath services centered on group participation. He calls his service “Joey Weisenberg’s Spontaneous Jewish Choir,” and has been expanding the practice by visits to synagogues throughout New York City. He also leads courses at the Jewish Theologocial Seminary and the University of Pennsylvania. “I want Jews to be comfortable dancing. I want them to be comfortable singing,” he says.

Just don’t call him Sholomo Carlebach, the storied American rabbi who also revived communal songs. “He came along and developed melodies that were so beautiful that people forgot the old ones,” Weisenberg says of Carlebach.

Weisenberg’s own service “takes melodies that are far older.” Chiefly, he uses nigunim, wordless melodies chanted in repetition. They date as least as far back as the early-1700s, with many tunes attributed to the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of chasidism; “songs that transcend syllables and sound,” is how the rabbi described them. To be sure, Weisenberg’s service isn’t just old melodies. He includes plenty of prayer service classics — Adon Olam, Eliyahu Hanavi — but puts them to forgotten tunes. “Sometimes, people need the words to hang on to,” Weisenberg says.

Musical inspiration: Ferus Mustafov, a Macedonian clarinetist Favorite childhood memory growing up in Milwaukee: Watching car demolitions at the Miller Compressing pound with his grandfather
—Eric Herschthal

Rabbi Elie Kaunfer, 34
Independent minyan leader pushing for new worship style

After graduating from the Jewish Theological Seminary, Rabbi Elie Kaunfer searched New York City for somewhere to pray. “We were looking for a place that would basically express our ideal davening community,” says Kaunfer of the impetus for starting Mechon Hadar: An Institute for Prayer, Personal Growth and Jewish Study (mechonhadar.org). The organization, includes an independent minyan that has spawned a network of independent minyanim across the country, as well as the first egalitarian yeshiva for lay people in America, is going on its second summer this year.

Ordained at JTS and a graduate of Harvard University, Kaunfer’s vision for an ideal prayer community included a participatory, spirited, non-denominational service, a place that would include men and women equally while drawing on traditional liturgy — “something that would move your kishkes.” Kehilat Hadar has become a model for other independent minyanim, and Kaunfer hopes Yeshivat Hadar will grow to be a full-time program for people who “desire to be empowered by Judaism and live in an intensive Jewish community.”

In the next few years, Kaunfer hopes to see the expansion of independent minyanim and yeshivot across the country and to turn his summer yeshiva into a full-time program for lay leaders. This he will do with money from the Avi Chai Fellowship, of which he was a recipient this month. Kaunfer says of the yeshiva, “Institutionally it certainly has been a dream that reflects the values and community that I would like to be a part of. It’s the yeshiva I wish I had gone to.”

A post-denominational Jewish world: “People are less concerned with denominational labels and more concerned with finding an appropriate intensive community to become empowered Jews.”

Coolest gig: Kaunfer worked as a corporate fraud investigator, cold calling the likes of Enron employees to discuss their wrongdoings. He also investigated corruption in the New York City public schools, which on one occasion required him to wear a wire.
—Carolyn Slutsky

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization