New York Jewish Week — The “Yes You Can” driving school is no more, but the sign that still hangs over its former storefront in Central Harlem is something of an apt message for the new tenant — a fledgling synagogue that aims to demonstrate the vitality of Jewish life in the neighborhood.

Kehillat Harlem, a non-denominational “shul community,” moved into the Adam Clayton Powell storefront last year after seven years in transit. Since its founding, it has held services in a basement, a local cafe and even outdoors.

Now, Kehillat Harlem is using the space for what its founding rabbi, Kyle Savitch, says is the only option for weekly Shabbat services in the neighborhood, even as a host of new initiatives aim to serve Harlem’s growing Jewish population.

“We’re the only synagogue in Central Harlem that’s meeting every Friday, every Saturday, let alone having meals and everything else, so I definitely think we’re serving a need there,” Savitch said. “For folks who are looking to move or looking to join a new community, sometimes what they want to know is that there is consistency in Jewish life, and so I think we’re able to provide that.”

But Kehillat Harlem isn’t just striving to add a synagogue to the neighborhood. Savitch also aims to leverage the shul into a community hub or even, one day, a restaurant serving Jewish food.

A dress rehearsal came last month on the first night of Hanukkah, when roughly 70 people filled Kehillat Harlem’s storefront space for the shul’s annual Hanukkah speakeasy. To enter the event, which included a jazz band, latkes and kosher tequila from Tekiah Spirits, partygoers used the secret password “Lehadlik ner,” the Hebrew phrase meaning “to light a candle.”

“We’re exploring how our role in the community can expand to infrastructure in terms of kosher food, in terms of space access, in terms of places to gather,” Savitch said.

Kehillat Harlem is hardly the only entity to tackle those questions in Harlem, which once had one of the largest Jewish populations in the world. Once home to roughly 175,000 Jewish residents at its peak in 1917, the neighborhood saw most of them leave as it transformed into a hub of Black culture during the Harlem Renaissance. Some of the neighborhood’s synagogues remain standing, but have been converted into churches.

Over the last 15 years, the neighborhood’s Jewish population has gone from an estimated 2,000 people to 16,000........

© The Times of Israel