About

Welcome

A warm, welcoming, thoughtful Jewish community.

Who We Are

Kehillah Kedoshah Zikhron Zvi is a small, home-based synagogue in the Hudson Valley, gathered for the serious practice of Jewish life. We pray in the Western Sephardic rite as it has come down through Amsterdam, London, and New York, combining it — uniquely — with the niggunim and warmth of the Hassidic tradition.

The community is egalitarian: everyone who wishes can lead or read Torah. If you can’t, yet, we will teach you. And the learning of Jewish texts happens together.

We are Orthoprax: our focus is on practicing our Judaism beautifully and with integrity. The synagogue is small by design, because the best conversations happen in small rooms. We hope you will come with questions and with lively interest in Jewish life — its texts, its calendar, its music, its arguments, its hospitality.

Join us!

You are welcome here. We require no knowledge of Hebrew, no account of where you have prayed or studied before — or whether you have done those things at all. We say every word of the prayers aloud, no mumbling, and you will always know what page we are on. Children are welcome, and so are their questions. So are doubters, seekers, people who came because their kids go to Vassar, and people who got off the train in Poughkeepsie by mistake.

Stay for the Kiddush — we will feed you well and with love, and the conversation is wide-ranging and engaging. In fact, if prayer is not your thing, come only for the Kiddush and the company.

צבי הירש בן משה וליבע בתיה

Zvi Hersh ben Moshe ve-Liebe Basia
Harry Epstein, z’tzl

Kehillah Kedoshah Zikhron Zvi is named for Zvi Hersh ben Moshe ve-Liebe Basia — Harry Epstein, of blessed memory — Marc’s paternal grandfather. Born in 1902, he emigrated to the United States from the town of Skidel (Skidl, Skidzel; Yiddish סקידל; Belarusian Скідзель; Russian Скидель) in the Grodno Governorate of the Russian Empire, today in western Belarus, about thirty kilometers southeast of Hrodna.

He settled in New Haven, Connecticut, where, although trained as an accountant, he chose to become a junk dealer because he needed to be his own boss in order to keep Shabbos. He was a joyful person whose singular aim was shalom bayis — domestic tranquility. Although of modest means, he was extremely charitable.

He passed away, as befits a saintly person, on the Day of Atonement in 1989.
May his memory continue to bless us.

Harry Epstein feeding a deer