'Pay what you can' shul grows

Rabbi Roni Tabick agreed, “Definitely our fee structure helps. We will make a recommendation but in the end you can decide what it is you can give.”

It makes conversations about membership “less transactional”, he said. “It takes a lot of pressure off people, especially young people coming to join a shul maybe for the first time in their adult lives. The fact they are not immediately landed with a huge bill makes it very palatable. And those who can afford it can give more without having to be asked.”

Other communities could try it too. “I think it’s the way forward,” he said.

The congregation started 14 years ago in an area of North London that, Jewishly speaking, is usually associated with its large Charedi population. But over the past few years, young people from other parts of the capital began moving in.

NSNS has doubled in three years. Some 70 per cent of its 130-odd members are under the age of 50, Mr Robinson said, and it was still able to attract new faces during lockdown.

“Having a young, dynamic, approachable, empathetic rabbi is an enormous draw,” he said.

Rabbi Tabick, who is now 38 and the son of rabbinic parents, Jackie and Larry, first began serving the fledgling community as a student rabbi, paying visits from New York. He moved with his young family into the neighbourhood six years ago. “I try to be serious about what it means to keep Shabbat, to keep kosher but acknowledging everyone is welcome regardless of how much they keep,” he said.

Matt Plen, chief executive of Masorti Judaism — which has supported the training of six young rabbis over the past decade with another rabbinic student due to start next year — said, “Good rabbinical leadership is the most important factor in community growth and this has paid off.”

While the demographics may have been favourable, Masorti also invested in NSNS in another way. The congregation was the pilot for a community building programme which Masorti initiated with the grassroots social change group, Citizens UK. The CUK team comprised Jewish staff Charlotte Fischer and Daniel Mackintosh as well as a trainee priest, Caitlin Harland.

“For me the core thing I got from Citizens UK was the model of working, which is the community organising approach,” said Rabbi Tabick. “A lot of it is about listening to people rather than trying to fit people into things that already exist, it’s about trying to help them create what they are looking for.”

The Masorti-Citizens UK scheme, Mr Robinson said, “trained people who are keen and enthusiastic about the community but who weren’t necessarily in leadership roles at the time, helping them look at community development”.

One resulting initiative, the first to be instigated by members rather than the rabbi, was a book club. The community also set up a buddy system to welcome prospective new members and improved its outreach through social media.

The book club since “became a lifeline for many of our members during the pandemic because it could continue online,” Rabbi Tabick said.

Lockdown also opened up opportunities for learning for people “who wouldn’t otherwise access it”. The weekly parashah class he launched last year will continue online. “In some ways, that is much easier because people don’t have to shlep out at night,” he said.

A community, Mr Robinson said, needs to offer enough “to have something for everybody”.

Younger people are “attracted by commitment to social action, diverse programming and by the fact that we actively encourage lay people to learn and become involved in service leadership”.

But not everyone wants to participate in prayer.When he first began coming along, he was struck by the fact that the community advertised the start time not only for services but also for kidd-ush. When he asked why, he was told “because we have some people who won’t come to the service but will turn up for the kiddush.”

Now emerging from some of the pandemic constraints, the community is looking to start its own cheder and revive a pre-barmitzvah progamme.

And Rabbi Tabick is keen on building local interfaith links. Lockdown had brought an inward turn with the focus on supporting the community’s members, he said.

“I think it’s really important as Jews that we don’t just look inward, that we connect outwards. In Hackney, Islington, there is so much wealth and so much poverty. I think if we work with our neighbours, we can do a lot of good here.”