The majority of American Jews live outside of this country’s biggest cities. This series will tell the stories of life between the coasts — in small towns, rural communities, satellite suburbs — where Jewish resilience and reinvention are vibrant, layered, and too often overlooked.
Nik Jakobs, a cattle farmer in rural Illinois, is building a new synagogue and Holocaust museum using sacred objects rescued from shuttered congregations across America
Hundreds of Jews from the coasts and Canada have flocked to the heartland hoping to plant new roots in a once-booming prairie city. Other towns are taking notice
An urban synagogue in South Philadelphia is growing fast by defying expectations — and has become a closely watched experiment in American Jewish life
Malya and William Levin sank their savings into reviving America’s first Jewish farm — and found themselves juggling four kids, two careers, and 85 acres of history that refused to behave
Amid the harvest, the descendants of Holocaust survivors paused their farmwork to pray in a tent beside the fields — marking the first step toward a new synagogue in the American heartland.
Inside a Chicago synagogue, retired judge Jerry Orbach has built a refuge for the stained glass of America’s vanishing Jewish communities
Designed to echo Sinai, Frank Lloyd Wright’s only synagogue now houses a flourishing community — defying demographic trends and architectural odds
In Charleston, West Virginia, a century-old congregation is betting that a 30-something rabbi with two little kids can keep its doors open for decades
