By Meryl Feld
Editor
“You don’t demand that people call you ‘Rabbi,’ you earn it every day,” Rabbi Doug Alpert, pulpit rabbi at Congregation Kol Ami told The Chronicle.
Rabbi Alpert thinks that showing up — being there — for his community is the biggest part of earning his title. That’s also a theme of the social justice work at the core of his synagogue. “That’s what I tell my folks, if they want to go out and contribute, job one is just to show up. Just to be there and stand with people. And the truth is, people honor me by allowing me into their lives and sharing their lives with me. And I never want to take that for granted,” he said.
Since 2011, Rabbi Alpert has led a congregation serving central Kansas City that is committed to recognizing and improving the issues of the urban core.
“Our geography matters a lot to us,” he said.
When Kol Ami left their location in Prairie Village, they sought out an area that would allow them to be easily connected to the urban core. Their desire to get “beyond the walls of the synagogue” played a large role in this decision. “Being with people not like us,” was part of that decision too, said Alpert.
A core of social justice
One way Kol Ami connects to the urban core is through their social justice work. Right now the community is focusing on supporting the efforts of four organizations. Those include: The Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity (MORE), the Migrant Farm Workers Assistance Fund, the Martin Luther King School in the Kansas City School District and the Community Garden in Manheim Park east of Troost. “East of Troost means a lot,” Rabbi Alpert said, “My one requirement, or wish, was that it be East of Troost and so we’ve been in that garden since 2012. It’s grown tremendously and has put us in a neighborhood that allows us to meet people that otherwise we would never meet. And it has had a positive impact on the neighborhood in that it has become a central focus of the neighborhood, of the community.
“Community gardens have a way of bringing people together,” he said.
For example, a few years ago, a woman who lived across the street from the garden was murdered. The following Shabbat, Kol Ami held their regularly scheduled services in the garden. The father and son of the woman who was killed showed up, as did her neighbors, and the broader community. “So we ended up serving a much broader purpose davening Shabbos morning,” Rabbi Alpert said. He found space within the service to acknowledge the grief of the family and neighbors and try to offer some words of comfort. Rabbi Alpert felt that he was able to bring the community together with his words and service.
That’s not the first or the last time Kol Ami has connected with a community that knows very little about Judaism. Some are meeting Jews for the first time. Sukkot provides a yearly opportunity for Kol Ami to connect with the larger community. The synagogue’s sukkah is in the community garden, which encourages neighbors to ask questions and learn, providing Kol Ami with an opportunity to “share who we are,” Rabbi Alpert said.
Rabbi Alpert wants to share with everyone in the Kansas City Jewish Community, “We take to heart the commandment, the mitzvah, to not oppress the stranger and to love the stranger,” he said.
“In addition to providing what people expect a synagogue to provide, which is a space for prayer, a space for study, our geographic position connects us to the life of the central city,” Rabbi Alpert said. Part of that connection includes being engaged with the issues of city life and providing a community for Jews who prefer to live in the city.
Connecting with other communities is important to Kol Ami. Rabbi Alpert said, “At Kol Ami we have a lot of contact with non-Jews and a lot of contact with the black community and Latinx community.”
Inclusivity
Kol Ami’s vision is “to provide a nonjudgmental Jewish environment, in which people from a broad range of backgrounds can engage with G-d, with each other, and with the broader Kansas City community.”
Kol Ami is a non-denominational, non-affiliated community. And nobody’s turned away for inability to pay. “The spectrum of Jewish thought and theology is really broad, but it’s not without limits,” Rabbi Alpert said, “We want people that are somewhere on a Jewish journey.” Their food policy requires a vegetarian menu in order to be as inclusive as possible.
“Maybe we’re the majority of Jews in Kansas City who didn’t grow up in one synagogue, aren’t affiliated, haven’t been affiliated and don’t get that sense that they absolutely belong somewhere,” said Rabbi Alpert. “Kol Ami is not old enough for anyone to have grown up there.” He said he feels that makes the community unique because it allows anyone to feel comfortable and levels the playing field in a way, as everyone is in the same boat.
“Somewhat due to a smaller size congregation, everybody has the opportunity to have a larger impact on the direction and livelihood of the synagogue,” Rabbi Alpert said. Some people are excited about the opportunity to create Jewish community, though, and that’s exactly what Kol Ami is doing according to Rabbi Alpert. “It’s a work in progress and G-d willing 20 years from now we’ll still be around and we’ll still say it’s a work in progress.”
Rabbi Alpert works to make sure that people don’t feel judged for what they don’t know. Part of that is teaching Judaism 101 in a more sophisticated way than is commonly done. The community is learning in other unique ways too. Monthly group meditations offered on Sundays are opened by Rabbi Alpert, with a Judaic-infused intentional thought. Family programming focuses on a monthly Jewish value, too.
“People have a tendency to religion shop with us and they’re able to access us and stick a toe in the water and see how they feel. So in that sense we’re very open. And I think the best representation or example of that is that since I have become Rabbi at Kol Ami we’ve never required tickets for high Holidays, we’ve never required an advance reservation. People can just show up,” said Rabbi Alpert.
Building relationships
Over 70 households call Kol Ami home. A significant number, but not all, of Kol Ami community members live in the city. But Rabbi Alpert thinks all community members at least appreciate what urban life has to offer.
Saul and Liz Epstein are congregants who discovered Kol Ami through Rabbi Alpert teaching in the community-wide conversion class. “We both appreciated Doug’s active commitment to social justice in Kansas City, the open High Holy Day policy at Kol Ami, and the way we were made to feel not just welcome but included,” Liz Epstein told The Chronicle.
The Epsteins said that Kol Ami’s focus on social justice aligns with their Jewish values, which has them eager to take on responsibilities to support the community and their collective social concerns. “If we could tell everyone in the KC Jewish Community one thing about Kol Ami, it would be that the congregation is inclusive in exceptional ways. Not only do we celebrate queer Jews, Jews of color, and all of our companions who may not be Jews, we know and celebrate the fact that our Jewish journeys have each started from different places. While a lot of our liturgical structure is drawn from the Reform Movement, we connect to all the roots of Jewish tradition; using more Hebrew; mixing old and new melodies, practices, and interpretations,” Saul Epstein said.
Erica Clinton runs Kol Ami’s Family Program. “I was connected to Kol Ami after hearing Rabbi Alpert speak at an event. After moving to Kansas City about 10 years ago, we tried various synagogues, but did not feel at home in any until we found Kol Ami,” she told The Chronicle. She enjoys being a member at Kol Ami because of the intimate nature of the community and its focus on social justice.
“If I could say one thing to the Jewish community about Kol Ami it would be that we have a gem of a rabbi. Not only does he care deeply about our community, but about our larger community as well and actively works to better our larger community. Plus he has a fabulous wife (Fay Balk)” Clinton said, “Kol Ami is unique in that we are a small congregation striving to do great things.”
The Epsteins agree. “What makes Kol Ami unique is our commitment to being present as Jews in the urban heart of Greater Kansas City. We are relatively new and relatively small, but intimately and vitally connected both to the longer history of Judaism and to the shorter history of Kansas City, and determined to play an active role in building a future that’s better for all of us,” Liz Epstein said.
Monthly Rabbi break
Once a month the community gets the special opportunity to lead services and gives Rabbi Alpert a day off. Unfortunately this tradition faded away with the onset of the pandemic, but it provided an opportunity for those interested in leading services with a chance to do so. Many of these services were based in song. Sometimes poetry. Sometimes art. Sometimes service leaders work with Rabbi Alpert, but they are informally and loosely supervised. The community hopes to return to this unique tradition when it is safe to do so.
POSITIVE OUTLOOK
“It’s been chaotic and presented different challenges and maybe a couple of opportunities as well,” Rabbi Alpert said. COVID has provided Kol Ami with the opportunity to begin coming together for a virtual daily minyan – created as an opportunity to connect when many in the community were potentially feeling more isolated, he said. The synagogue plans to continue Zoom daily minyan.
One thing Kol Ami does that Rabbi Alpert thinks sets them apart from similar congregations is they’re doing Daf Yomi – a daily page of Talmud study – during daily shacharit. “Talmud is really as much about how Jews think as what Jews think,” he said.
Using their connection to build relationships, specifically through social justice work, will continue to be at the core of what Kol Ami does. “The idea of opening your tent door a little wider to see who walks in can be a really fulfilling experience,” Rabbi Alpert said, “It’s a source of outreach for the Jewish community. In a way I see our purpose as serving beyond just the Kol Ami community and eventually serving the entire community in Kansas City.”