Chabad’s Rosh Hashanah celebration ushers in new chapter for Elk Grove’s Jewish community
The apples and honey that carry the wishes of a sweet Rosh Hashanah have added significance in Elk Grove this year: A Sunday dinner and Monday services to celebrate the Jewish New Year are the first by the newly established Chabad of Elk Grove.
The new year also marks an important new chapter for Elk Grove’s Jewish community. Chabad of Elk Grove will open as a permanent synagogue, believed to be the first in the city of nearly 180,000, that will be a center for Jewish life in the greater Elk Grove area.
Rabbi Chaim Groner, the young leader of the new Chabad center, said it wants to bring Jewish life in a real way to Elk Grove. Experiencing Shabbat, the day of prayer, and Torah study; Hebrew school, holiday programs and community events will all be part of a new center and a new way to connect with the community.
“There’s a wide variety of programs we hope to be doing,” Groner said. “We hope to provide every Jew in Elk Grove with the opportunity to connect with their heritage and with Jewish tradition.”
That begins with a celebration 6:30 p.m. Sunday at Hampton Inn & Suites, 2305 Longport Ct., in Elk Grove, with a dinner to welcome the Jewish new year.
New year services continue at 11 a.m. Monday at Hampton Inn & Suites with a shofar ceremony, beginner service, traditional songs and discussion based on traditional prayer.
Groner and Chabad Elk Grove will celebrate Yom Kippur at Hampton Inn with services at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 4; and 10 a.m. Oct. 5. An evening 6:30 p.m. service will be followed by a break fast.
Hampton Inn & Suites will be the site of all of the Chabad’s prayers and communal meals over the Jewish High Holidays, Groner said.
Plans for Hanukkah services are also in the works, including a public menorah lighting. Meantime, the search for a permanent site continues.
Creating community
Groner and wife Raizel are creating community even as they are finding it in Elk Grove. The couple and new parents recently returned to Sacramento from New York and are steeped in leadership and outreach.
Australia-raised Chaim Groner’s family leads a Jewish community in Melbourne. Raizel Groner is the daughter of Chabad of Sacramento Rabbi Mendy Cohen. In New York, Raizel worked with special needs students while Chaim served as a student rabbi.
Cohen encouraged the move to establish a new center in Elk Grove and to expand youth activities at Chabad of Sacramento. The Groners opened Camp Gan Sacramento in July, a summer camp for preschool and elementary school-age Jewish children, as they began to plant the seeds for a center in Elk Grove.
Their introduction to Elk Grove came during a visit to the city’s Multicultural Festival, the annual August event spotlighting the city’s cultural diversity, and its credo “A City Welcome to All.”
“People were so welcoming, nice and outgoing. We only saw smiles and warmth,” Groner said. “Everyone was approachable with arms wide open. We felt that almost straight away.”
The south county center makes sense in a city that is routinely among the state’s fastest growing. Young families, including those relocating from the more costly Bay Area, are attracted by Elk Grove’s relative affordability, diversity, parks and schools. More newcomers have arrived in the years since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic as more workers were offered flexibility to remotely connect to the office.
“Over the past few years, Elk Grove has seen a surge in population growth that has seen many young families moving in and the Jewish community is no exception,” said Tzali Reicher, a Chabad spokesman.
A new center in Elk Grove is also central to Chabad’s mission to provide services to Jews of all denominations, regardless of affiliation, specifically those who live in areas where there is little or no Jewish institutional presence.
To that end, the Groners for months have been meeting one-on-one with members of the community.
“It’s been going well. Slowly and surely we’re getting to meet people here,” Groner said. “Our plan is to meet as many Jews as we can and meet the need.”
This story was originally published September 23, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
.JPG)