Norfolk touted as hot spot for Orthodox Jews

NORFOLK

A national faith group is touting Norfolk as a prime place to relocate for Orthodox Jews in metropolitan New York who want to live religiously and escape the high unemployment and cost of living.

The Orthodox Union - an umbrella group of Orthodox synagogues - will highlight Norfolk at its job and relocation fair June 14 in New York City.

Members of B'nai Israel congregation, a Norfolk Orthodox synagogue, will be there, talking to families looking for a home outside the Big Apple. Twenty-one other cities also will be represented.

Norfolk's Orthodox community is not large. Nonetheless, "It is a sustainable Jewish community, and with more people, it would be even more attractive," said Union president Stephen Savitsky.

The Union Web site (see www.tinyurl.com/lfqjmd ) profiles Norfolk, calling it "one of the most desirable Jewish communities in the United States."

Rabbi Chaim Silver, whose B'nai Israel congregation has about 125 member families, said Norfolk has a broad range of Orthodox resources, focused mainly in the Ghent neighborhood.

The amenities include kosher food outlets, a kosher supervisor, an Orthodox day school, and separate Orthodox high schools for boys and girls. It also has a mikvah (a ritual bath house) and an eruv, a symbolic enclosure that allows Orthodox families to push baby strollers and perform other tasks normally forbidden on the Sabbath.

Norfolk also has Chabad of Tidewater, a synagogue and outreach center sponsored by the Jewish Lubavitch movement that also is Orthodox.

The eruv, day school and high schools all were established this decade, erasing some of the drawbacks of living in Norfolk. Formerly, some Orthodox families felt compelled to send their children to out-of-town boarding schools for Orthodox education.

Silver said the boys' and girls' high schools were founded to give Orthodox families a local option. But organizers knew the schools would enhance Norfolk as a destination for out-of-state Jews, he said.

The Norfolk Orthodox community also sees its small size as a plus because no member will get lost in the crowd, as can happen in big Jewish centers. "In Norfolk, what we pride ourselves in is: Everyone makes a difference; their opinions are valued," Silver said.

That intimacy is one reason Nancy and Allan Berman moved in 2006 to Norfolk from Baltimore, where they had their pick of 20 kosher restaurants and scores of synagogues.

The couple used to visit Allan's relatives in Norfolk but found themselves and their two daughters welcomed into other Orthodox family homes as well.

"In a bigger community, people are into their own families. Here, it's small, but more than that, people make an effort," Nancy said. "You feel a part of something."

Baltimore, she said, "has hundreds of synagogues and a big Jewish community, but we were not able to find a synagogue that we felt connected to and attached to like we have at B'nai Israel."

The Bermans' cost of living is also lower in Norfolk, and the couple is able to continue their professions - Allan as a financial consultant, Nancy as a lawyer.

B'nai Israel has told the Union its congregants will use their local contacts to uncover job opportunities for Orthodox newcomers in Norfolk, Silver said.

Other areas promoted by the Orthodox Union include Richmond; upstate New York; Allentown, P a.; Columbus, Ohio; Des Moines, Iowa; Harrisburg, P a.; Houston, Jacksonville, Fla.; Memphis, Tenn.; and St. Louis.

Steven G. Vegh, (757) 446-2417, steven.vegh@pilotonline.com