L’Dor V’Dor at TCS

BY DIANA SUSSMAN

members of TCS, sharing experiences — Hebrew school, b’nei mitzvahs, brises, baby namings, and other life cycle events.

Lori’s parents loved that their daughter, her family, and their friends were all TCS members. It enabled them to be really involved grandparents. All the children knew them because they drove the kids to activities and attended every preschool and Hebrew school event, including TCS’ first preschool graduation.

return with their families as adults. As founding member Isabel Moskowitz noted, “When we [she and her thenhusband Lewis Sperber] started the synagogue there was no older generation. I was 36 years old. Now the fact that we have this multi-generation membership is really special. Now we get to watch all the kids bring back their children.”

Isabel’s daughter Alyssa Gold essentially grew up at TCS. She was only nine years old

When a small group of families started a synagogue in 1987, they had no idea the seed they planted would blossom into the TCS we have today. They met in an office space a touch larger than the size of someone’s living room. Since it was located above Baskin Robbins, they unofficially dubbed it B’nei Baskin Robbins.

As Martina Israely described, “back then everyone knew everyone. When the bulletin was going out, we sat on the floor of someone’s kitchen, stapled it, stamped it, and sorted it. When one member thought the color of the walls washed out the new rabbi, she painted the walls blue to match the rabbi’s eyes.”

Today, TCS has 430 member families and is thriving. It has a large, beautiful, renovated building and owns Rabbi Wiederhorn and Cantor Cattan’s homes. Our clergy hold positions on national boards. The choice of many grown children of TCS members to return and raise their own families at TCS has added to our community’s growth.

Lori and David Popkin were one of the first “children” to come home to TCS.

Lori’s parents Michael and Cynthia Lieberbaum joined TCS in the late 1980s when Lori was in college. She remembers meeting this warm and welcoming group while attending services with her husband David and her recently-born daughter Alex. So, when they moved down from Boston in the early 1990s, it was a “nobrainer” to join TCS, even though TCS didn’t have a permanent home or offer preschool at that time.

Once TCS opened a preschool, Lori and many of her friends enrolled their children. These families all grew up together as

Always active, the Lieberbaums and Popkins contributed to our community in many ways. For instance, for many years the Lieberbaums have donated the honey that TCS gives out at Rosh Hashanah, David served on the rebuilding committee, and Lori has been on and off the board and executive board in various positions since joining. In fact, she is once again heading the nominating committee. As she explained, “I keep being drawn in because I love the place.” She feels that despite the incredible growth, “TCS is still the type of warm, welcoming place we fell in love with; it still has a lot of heart.”

Although Lori’s and David’s three children, Alex, Josh, and Ben now live elsewhere, she knows they understand the importance of being a part of a community. As she noted, “David and I met all our best friends at the Synagogue. We raised our kids together and have been through the life cycles with our core group of friends, all from the synagogue and that is very special. I hope wherever [my children] go, they find that community of support and friends like I found at TCS.”

The founders of our synagogue have taken particular pleasure watching their children when our synagogue was founded. She was the second person to become a bat mitzvah at TCS and she and her husband Josh Gold were the first to be married by both Rabbi Wiederhorn and Cantor Cattan. In 2020, the Golds moved to Westport and joined TCS. Their daughter Abigail is now in the fours. You’ve probably seen her during Shabbat at the Beach playing with her preschool friends. Not surprisingly, Alyssa has already become an active, engaged member. Given her marketing expertise, she served on the marketing committee to help with the rebranding of TCS. She feels close to both the Rabbi and Cantor and, when deciding whether to take a position as COO of a not-for-profit organization, felt comfortable enough to ask advice of several TCS members who had held similar positions. Everyone was happy to help.

At a recent board meeting, Isabel realized that she and two other board members and fellow founding members — Dick Kalt and Bob Israely – had grandchildren in the preschool. She found it heartwarming and noted that if “the synagogue is our legacy and if our children get involved and our grandchildren are attached then that is the best thing we’ve ever done.”

Bob Israely and his wife Martina have also been thrilled that their daughter Ruth Israely and her wife Anne Kendall have chosen to settle in the area, join TCS, and send their two children to Kehillah –eight-year-old Caroline attends second grade and five-year-old Judah attends kindergarten. Martina felt that TCS Kehillah has taken some responsibility off of herself and her husband. “It’s so nice to have them there, see them there, watch them grow, be taught Judaism, the same moral basis and our values. We don’t have to slam them over the head.”

Martina found it “heartwarming to see our community accept our daughter and her wife (who is not Jewish)” and is grateful the “synagogue community has been overwhelmingly supportive toward them in both good times and bad times.”

Ruth, Anne, and their children have made many friends. Funny enough, two girls that Judah met in preschool each had a parent Oliver Olanoff and Alyssa Gold — who was a former classmate of Judah’s uncle Michael Israely.

As Martina noted, “it’s wonderful to watch our children involved in the to the TCS community, and their eight grandchildren see that connection. For instance, their son Michael lives in Manhattan but his daughter Moxie had her baby naming at TCS alongside her cousin Caroline. Michael and their other son Jeffrey, who lives in Paris, still visit TCS members they knew from childhood. One of Jeffrey’s childhood friends, Eric Levin, asked Bob Israely to serve as the gabbai at his daughter’s bat mitzvah. Ruth has been friends with Elizabeth Boas, another TCS member, since they met in the twos at the TCS preschool. So “the friends you make in preschool could be friends you make for life.”

The lifelong ties created while growing up in our synagogue led Jonathan Levy and his wife Sara to the “inevitability” of moving back to Westport and joining TCS. His parents, Harold and Shari z”l Levy, joined TCS during the Baskin Robbins years. Shari z”l was one of TCS’ most active members. Jonathan noted that “my mom was nice to every single person she ever met and the staff of TCS held a big piece of her heart.” struggle of wanting to make conscious choices and a conscious choice is something laudable, it’s important to make choices, but there is an opposite pull of doing things because that is how we’ve always done them. Like they say in Fiddler on the Roof, it’s tradition.”

Sara also saw the TCS community as where their roots were. Westport was the place where they had spent their summers. Rabbi Wiederhorn had officiated at their wedding. They had gone to TCS for High Holiday services. She recalled going up to the bimah for an aliyah during services, and despite people wearing masks because of Covid, they felt connected as they recognized many faces in the congregation. Then a new preschool family was brought up. I said that “one day that will be us and then it was.” synagogue today.” Bob Israely added that it will be wonderful to know that at their grandchildren’s mitzvah the rabbi can mention how they spent time with their grandparents when they were young.

Their grandchildren love Shabbat at the Beach, their teachers, the Cantor, and the Rabbi. They appreciate how different their grandchildren’s experiences attending Hebrew school today are from their own children’s experience. Back then, things were not as structured.

Despite their other three children living elsewhere, the Israelys feel connected

He remembers the early years and attending High Holiday services at Town Hall, Norwalk High School, and Norwalk Community College before TCS had its own building. He spent at least two afternoons at week at the synagogue because his mom spent so much time there teaching and volunteering. He notes that over 35 years, there have been many changes for the better. “Rabbi Wiederhorn and Cantor Cattan have taken us to a new level. Preschool and Hebrew School teachers are more professional now. But my mom teaching so much is why I had to be there. I hope people are still involved.” He believes that he and Sara received such a warm welcome when they joined because of the groundwork his mother laid. “While there are some new people, the facilities personnel who knew my mom greeted me with a smile and knew my name.” When Jonathan forgot to turn off his headlights, someone recognized his car and offered to turn them off for him. They knew him. He has even reconnected with people he knew from growing up — like Dana Bernstein, Nate Cohen, and Aaron Tolkin.

Since Jonathan and Sara always knew that their real community was in Westport, they never sought out a Jewish community when they lived in Chelsea, even though it might have been easier to attend Yom Kippur locally. Jonathan emphasizes, “[Joining TCS] wasn’t a choice. There’s a

She felt a sense of “things coming full circle” when the woman Sara heard her mother-in-law interviewing for the director of preschool gave her and her eldest daughter Charlotte a tour of the preschool. Charlotte now attends the fours and Victoria attends the twos. William, who is six months old, will attend when he is old enough.

Proud of her pre-existing connection to TCS, Sara takes pleasure in telling other TCS preschool moms that Rabbi Wiederhorn had married her and her husband or describing to those moms what the synagogue looked like before the renovation. Unlike many preschool parents, she has experienced services in the main sanctuary.

Coincidentally, Miriam Young, a close friend of Sara’s cousins, is also a TCS member. Sara’s and Miriam’s families have

CONTINUED ON PAGE 15

FEATURE :: MARTIN ROSENFELD