Lying in the heart of the US’s Midwest, it’s the city that gained renown a century ago as the “Oil capital of the world”.
But now Tulsa has a new claim to fame, as home to a thriving fast-expanding Jewish community.
While the kehillah has a long history dating back more than a century, it has recently seen numbers rapidly growing to add to the 3,000 already living in the Oklahoma metropolis with a population of one million.
In large part that’s thanks to a new scheme inviting Jews from elsewhere to visit the prairie town and see if they want to make it their home after sampling its comfortable and safe way of life.
Tulsa Tomorrow is the brainchild of local businessman David Finer.
Working with friends who also support the scheme, he has been flying in Jewish residents from other US cities for the past few years with considerable success.
Finer, who is the chief executive of family textile firm Fabricut, said: “We realised there were not a lot of young Jewish professionals coming to the city, and decided to showcase Tulsa to them more aggressively.”
He believes his home town is safer for Jews than most locations in the US and abroad. “This is a community of faith,” he says of a city where many different Christian denominations worship.
“The majority of our townspeople are church-goers and respectful of the Tulsa Jewish community.”
Tulsa Tomorrow provides airfare, accommodation, meals and tours for Jewish guests who come to visit over a long weekend.
The success rate has been phenomenal: of 144 people who came to the city after taking up the offer, 113 have stayed on.
The Jewish community attractions include three synagogues, a thriving community centre, a primary school, an after-school programme offering Hebrew lessons and a senior living complex with kosher catering.
The affordability of housing Is also a big plus, with prices 43 per cent below the national average.
The city also offers a rich cultural base, including the extensive archive of Bob Dylan, and a superb line-up of institutions funded by oil philanthropy, including a ballet company and symphony orchestra, and richly endowed art galleries and museums.
B'nai Emunah Synagogue (B'nai Emunah)[Missing Credit]
As Finer says: “Tulsa is a hidden gem,” confounding the expectations of any first-time visitors thinking they will discover a backwater time-warp.
There’s also the $465 million Gathering Place urban park, which was voted best new American attraction of 2019, and was mostly funded by the foundation of philanthropist George Kaiser, whose family fled the Nazis.
It is just one of more than half a dozen Jewish family foundations that have made enormous contributions to life in Tulsa, considered “per capita, one of the most philanthropic cities in the country”, according to Rebekah Kantor-Wunsch, executive director of Tulsa Tomorrow.
Another built the Zarrow Jewish Community Campus, where a 15-acre plot encompasses the Charles Schusterman Jewish Community Center, Jewish primary school, the Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art and the senior living complex with room for 400 residents.
Tulsa’s Congregation B’nai Emunah, led by Rabbi Daniel Kalman, is the largest synagogue in the entire state of Oklahoma with a membership of more than 520 households.
Founded more than a century ago, its current building takes up an entire city block.
It houses a mikveh, also serving Jews from the less well-provisioned neighbouring states of Arkansas, Kansas and Missouri, a nursery, and an after-school programme that picks up children from several local schools to enjoy after-school activities including music and dance as well as Hebrew lessons.
There is also a bakery offering work to those seeking rehabilitation from mental illness, and for Passover the shul offers a kosher shop and a huge communal Seder with entertainment from its own musical ensemble.
“We cater for 350 congregants every Passover in our social hall and sanctuary,” says Rabbi Kalman, who moved to Tulsa 13 years ago from Los Angeles.
He finds the big difference from California is the Tulsa community working to make sure the city’s Jews know each other.
Rabbi Kalman says: “The founders of this congregation in 1916 stated their hope that it should be a bright spot for Judaism in America. And we have a deep recognition that if we are going to help perpetuate the community, we need to be innovative and resourceful. And we take security very seriously.”
The city’s other historic synagogue, Temple Israel, is building a new home to replace their recently demolished 1914 Reform shul. It is currently presided over by another rabbi who came from outside state.
Another scheme inviting new residents to the city is open to Jews and non-Jews alike, Tulsa Remote, is primarily funded by the Kaiser Foundation. Applicants who relocate receive $10,000, a mentor and three years of free workspace to those who relocate. The deal has been taken up by more than 4,000 arrivals since it was set up in 2018. Kantor-Wunsch says the aim of Tulsa Tomorrow Weekends is to help people “get a real sense of what day-to-day life looks like here – professionally, socially, and, if it’s meaningful to them, how they might plug into Jewish life and community”.
She adds that the aftermath of October 7 has played its part in attracting interest: “It has become a central part of many conversations I’m having with prospective candidates, especially those coming from Canada.
“There’s a heightened awareness around antisemitism, and people are thinking more deeply about how it shows up in their daily lives and what kind of community they want to be part of. Those conversations are happening more frequently and with a greater sense of urgency.”
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