Welcome to Young Peoples Synagogue

Founded in Pittsburgh in 1946 as Young Peoples Synagogue, YPS was a pioneer havurah, or religious fellowship. Committed to a dignified and spiritually moving, member-led, traditional religious service, the members of YPS have sustained our minyan for more than half a century. YPS has a special place in Jewish religious life in Pittsburgh and the United States. Meeting every week for Shabbat and festival services, we're a "do-it-yourself" shul: no rabbi, no secretary, no office, no paid professionals at all, which means we teach newcomers who want to extend their participation in the services. Our commitment to the minyan has fostered a strong sense of family among our members. Everything we do, from davening to setting up kiddush and the annual dinner, we do ourselves.

The founders of YPS were Zionists, which explains our Hebrew name Bohnai Yisrael (Builders of Israel). The focus on Israel continues to be important to our Jewish identity. Scholarships for study in Israel are offered annually to children of the congregation, and YPS members play active roles in the region's Israel-oriented organizations. A number of members and their children have made aliyah, and Young Judaea meets right in the shul.

The YPS model has been an influential one. Many children of members have taken leadership roles in other synagogues outside Pittsburgh, sometimes specifically based on YPS. When we celebrated our fiftieth anniversary in 1996, these second-generation congregants offered moving accounts on how formative the experience of growing up in YPS was for them. Not only did they master important synagogue skills, but the sense of family and community within the congregation gave them a strong Jewish identity.

A word about us as members: we come from a dozen countries and twice that many states, but we have deep roots in Pittsburgh as well. The great-great-grandfather of one member reached the U.S. before the Civil War. Our most frequent Torah reader works for the Pittsburgh police; other readers are a former University of Pittsburgh dean, an architect, a professor of civil engineering, a pathologist, a political scientist, an optometrist, a social worker, a professor of religious studies, an accountant, and a manufacturer of high-tech precision instruments. We're a diverse crew, which is not a coincidence: we believe that holding fast to our religious commitment goes hand-in-hand with being productive in our wider communities. One of the kids who learned to daven at YPS now flies planes for the Navy, another graduated from Annapolis in June 2003, and a third just missed by a whisker being named the new president of Harvard. But let's get one thing straight: you DON'T need a Ph.D. to join YPS!

In 1996 YPS moved in with B'nai Zion congregation in their Edwardian mansion at 6404 Forbes Avenue, corner of Denniston, in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill. You can spot us by our sign: "YPS/ Daveners Wanted/ youngpeoples.org."

Here we have a comfortable, informal setting for the 70 or 80 members who attend Shabbat and holiday services, with two ramps making the shul and social hall accessible to all. When we need larger seating capacity, we move two blocks away to the JCC.

We meet every Friday evening for mincha and ma'ariv (6:30 p.m. April through October, otherwise at sunset); Shabbat services on Saturday morning begin at 9:30 and end with one of us giving a talk, and kiddush. Mincha/ma'ariv Saturday afternoons wraps up Shabbat with a member-led class in chumash and Rashi, then havdalah. There is a Kindershul for kids every Saturday morning. We also get together for a picnic, a dinner, lectures, and bike rides. Our service times and the names of each week's speaker, class leader, and Torah reader appear in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle each week: www.pittchron.com.

As a group, we stress inclusiveness. We're active in Interfaith Volunteer Caregivers, which help the frail elderly who have no local family, whether in YPS or not. Our service runs on Ashkenazic lines, but we had a spectacular Sephardic service early in 2003, and expect to hold others. Newcomers are always joining us: our 19 new members since the start of 5763 means our active membership has just grown by 20%.

And why bother with all this work? The answer remains what it always was: self-improvement and spiritual enrichment. We sing aloud the books of Esther and of Ruth, the urgent message of social justice in Isaiah, the thrilling Song of Songs, and the always-trendy Kohelleth ("to everything there is a season"). No matter how often we say them, we never lose our wonder at our ancient texts. In what used to be someone's house we reclaim our prophets and our roots every Saturday so we always know where we are, not just in Pittsburgh but in the cosmos.

We're a fun bunch - you can see that from our Purim 5763/2003 photos that follow. We stand behind our sign when it says DAVENERS WANTED and invite you to daven with us as often as you can.