In 1973, Salt Lake City’s two small Jewish congregations — one Conservative, the other Reform — did something bold and, frankly, almost unthinkable in their respective traditions. They merged to create Congregation Kol Ami, which means “all my people.”
, who has been on Kol Ami’s board for two years, “and to watch the congregation expand as so many new people are moving into the state.” Cantor Sharon Brown-Levy offers a blessing over the bread with Rabbi Samuel Spector during the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Congregation Kol Ami in Salt Lake City on May 7, 2023.
Such harmony was not entirely predictable back in the 1970s, when the groups first explored the possibility of merger, said 85-year-old Bruce Cohne., which followed a strict Conservative tradition., a Reform community, by 1967 both were having financial struggles, Cohne said. It was especially tough to fund two religious schools.Seeing that success, leaders from the two traditions created a 20-member committee and began discussing the possibility of uniting the congregations.
For more than two years, they met every Wednesday night except holidays, Cohne said. “We worked hard.” Rabbi Samuel Spector at Congregation Kol Ami in Salt Lake City on Thursday Oct. 3, 2019. The synagogue is celebrating its 50th anniversary.Conservative Jews require a kosher kitchen; Reform members don’t.Eventually, they sold both properties and bought the current Kol Ami site, 10 acres at 2425 E. Heritage Way on the south side of Interstate 80.
“We are the oldest surviving consolidated congregation in the United States,” Cohne said. “At the time we merged, there were two others, but they didn’t make it.”has been delighted to introduce Spector to the current leaders of Utah’s predominant faith. For its part, Kol Ami works to “foster Jewish traditions and values,” members say in a video produced for the anniversary.“We are not an heirloom but a living fountain,” the rabbi said. The Jewish presence “has made our state richer, kinder and, our [collective] future, brighter.” Dale Brouillette and former Utah legislator David Litvack at the 50th anniversary celebration of Congregation Kol Ami in Salt Lake City on May 7, 2023.
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