Dips, Spreads, and Starters

Finding a Jewish community has been another positive for the Franks and others in New Town. Gerry Nemet said that group is growing and has regular outings.

“We had one get-together where we met at Padavan’s, a restaurant here in New Town, and everybody got together with their kids,” he said. “We’re building a group of Jewish people here. It’s at the very start, but it feels like we’re all getting to know each other.”

Creating a Jewish gathering place

On a late July evening last year, a half dozen young Jewish families gathered in a backyard for a “Shabbat Under the Stars” singalong and dinner. Previously, they might have thought they were the only Jews in the area. The location was the Chabad Jewish Center of St. Charles County, which doubles as the home of its co-directors, Rabbi Chaim Landa and his wife, Bassy.

Mingling with the crowd were the Landa’s two children, Chaya and Mussia (they’ve since welcomed a third, Cherna, into the family). The younger Landas served as tiny Chabadniks, entertaining the kids that came along with their parents for this family friendly event.

The Shabbat gathering was just one of the ways the Landas have connected the Jewish community in St. Charles County. That’s not an especially easy task, given its size (593 square miles) and density; it’s Missouri’s third-most populous county. There are close to 6,000 Jews living in St. Charles, but they aren’t located in one vicinity.

Landa thinks there are likely 10,000 Jews in the county, but he said they aren’t always as easy to locate because some aren’t necessarily comfortable sharing their religious identity in a neighborhood, or a city, where they are in a distinct minority.

Then came COVID. In-person gatherings had dwindled. Just as the Delta variant faded, we were introduced to Omicron. Ever the optimist, Rabbi Landa found a silver lining in the pandemic.

“Although COVID presented very real challenges, especially for a startup community, it also brought out a huge bless-