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Learn more about Congregation Kol Ami at jewishvancouverusa.org
BARBERTON — Robyn Eskenazi Gray moved to Vancouver a couple of years ago from upstate New York, and since then the culturally Jewish woman said she’s been curious about the Jewish community in Clark County.
She satisfied some of that curiosity on Sunday afternoon by checking out the Bagel On! Fun Fair at Congregation Kol Ami, which included a tour of the synagogue. She and her husband, Dean Gray, learned plenty about the local Reform Jewish community, but they also were interested in the congregation’s building on Northeast 119th Street, which is about 3 years old.
“Our son’s an architect,” Eskenazi Gray said.
Outside the new building, the parking lot was full of activity, smells and music. Vendors sold art. Volunteers wore shirts displaying the phrases “Bagel On” and “Just chew it.” One member of the congregation answered questions at an “Ask a Jew” booth. At another booth, guests could have their names written in Hebrew.
The fair, in its second year, is an opportunity for non-Jewish people to learn more about Jewish culture in a laid-back environment.
“It’s for sure not a religious event. It’s a cultural event,” Kol Ami Rabbi Elizabeth Dunsker said. “For us, it’s also a way of telling Clark County there’s a Jewish community here, and we’re not so scary.”
Organizers estimated that about 1,500 people attended the fair Sunday. Visitors at the event could get plenty to eat, including bagels, pastrami sliders, kosher hot dogs and knish. They also could buy Judaica and Jewish holiday items, including Chanukah candles; Mezuzah cases, which are mounted to doorposts in Jewish homes; and many greeting cards to help celebrate bar or bat mitzvahs.
It’s hard to find those sorts of things in Clark County, said Deawn Herrmann, president of Kol Ami Women of Reform Judaism, the sisterhood for the congregation. “There’s like the token one (card) at Hallmark.”
Back inside the synagogue, tour guide Robin Hayden showed a video explaining the congregation’s Torah scroll, showed off a library full of Jewish literature and talked about the practices of congregation members once inside the sanctuary. At Kol Ami, which serves a Reform Jewish congregation, both men and women can wear yamalkas and prayer shawls, also known as tallits, while they worship.
Some strands on the prayer shawls are tied with 613 knots, each representing one of the commandments.
Hayden told the group that all the kids in the 135-family congregation learn to read Hebrew by age 13; that nobody is allowed to touch the Torah scroll and they instead use a pointer called a yad; and that their religion is both evolving and rooted in tradition.
“What Jews do is, we struggle with God” and what the Torah means, Hayden said. “You’re encouraged to question and learn from people before you.”
The tour was so popular during the first year of the fair that it couldn’t accommodate everyone, organizers said. This year, they modified the format so more visitors could get a glimpse inside.
Also on the tour was Deborah Bletstein, cantor at Congregation Neveh Shalom in Portland. It was her first time visiting Kol Ami.
“It’s a nice idea that we should consider,” Bletstein said of the fair.
