Congregation Cnesses Israel sits on South Baird Street in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in a building the congregation has called home since 1951. Its self-description - "A Jewish Gathering Place" - and the greeting stitched across the top of its About page, "All who enter are family," capture what members and visitors encounter here: a small, warm synagogue that has served northeastern Wisconsin's Jewish community for more than a century under the name Cnesses Israel, and for years before that as Congregation Anshe Keneseth Israel.
Over a Century on Green Bay's East Side
The story begins around 1899, when Green Bay's Orthodox Jewish community - which had been meeting for prayer in the home of a local cantor - began to organize a formal congregation. Five years later, in 1904, Congregation Anshe Keneseth Israel opened its first building at the corner of Pine and North Jackson Streets. By mid-century that space had been outgrown, and in 1951 the congregation relocated to its present home on South Baird Street. The move brought with it a new identity: the congregation aligned with Conservative Judaism and adopted the name Congregation Cnesses Israel - Hebrew for a "beautiful and noteworthy" gathering place.
Today, Cnesses Israel is an unaffiliated synagogue. Members and visitors of all backgrounds are welcome - Conservative, Orthodox, Reform, secular, and curious. The building's stained-glass windows, the Torah scrolls, and the menorah set into the sanctuary ceiling sit alongside this openness, an arrangement the cantor and members describe not as a contradiction but as a continuation of the Jewish practice of hachnasat orchim, the welcoming of guests.
Shabbat Services and the High Holidays
Weekly Shabbat worship is at the center of life at Cnesses Israel. Friday evenings and Saturday mornings bring the community together for Maariv and Shabbat Shacharit, led by Cantor Kate Judd in the prayer sanctuary. Services are held both in the synagogue building and on Zoom, with the virtual room opening fifteen to thirty minutes before the start of each service. The site notes that any technical hiccups mid-service cannot be corrected, given the obligations of religious observance - a small window into how seriously the congregation takes its prayer.
The High Holidays and festival calendar follow the Jewish year in full. The published schedule for the fall includes Ma'ariv for Sukkot with an Oneg in the Sukkah, Shabbat Shacharit with an Oneg in the Sukkah, Yizkor and Ma'ariv for Shemini Atzeret, and a Simchat Torah Ma'ariv and Celebration with Oneg. Each service is held in the synagogue and on Zoom. An Oneg - a light reception to mark the joy of Shabbat or a festival - regularly follows services, allowing congregants and visitors to linger and talk.
Guests are warmly received at services and events, though security procedures apply. Because of precautions advised by local law enforcement, anyone wishing to attend a prayer service or event is asked to contact the synagogue at least five days ahead, provide a name, home address, email, and a copy of a driver's license. On arrival, an on-duty officer checks identification against the submitted details, and visitors are asked to leave backpacks and large bags in the car.
Cantor Kate Judd, Spiritual Leader
Cantor Kate Judd is Cnesses Israel's Cantor-Educator and the spiritual leader of the congregation. A professional singer since childhood, she holds a graduate degree in classical voice from the Longy School of Music, where she studied with Sanford Sylvan (z"l), and has performed classical and cantorial repertoire throughout New England. Highlights include the premiere of Lynn Torgove's "Frauenstimmen: Women's Voices at Ravensbrück" and a concert of art songs by Lazar Weiner at YIVO in New York.
She earned a Masters of Jewish Education in 2015 and was ordained as a Cantor at Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts, in 2016, studying with Cantors Charles Osborne, Louise Treitman, Brian Mayer, Lynn Torgove, and Jeff Klepper, and Professor Joshua Jacobson, among others. A year of Talmud and Torah study at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem followed. For more than three decades she has also taught voice and the Alexander Technique - a method of mind-body re-education - and is a past chair of the American Society for the Alexander Technique (AmSAT). She was trained as a bereavement counselor and loss group facilitator with her local Hospice, where she volunteered for several years. Before her appointment to Cnesses Israel, she served several Jewish congregations in the New England area.
Her Cantor's Corner blog, published on the synagogue's site, reflects these dual vocations. Posts such as "Counting the Omer: How and Why," "Four Types of Passover Seder," "What is Purim really about?" and "Welcoming Guests at CCI" pair Jewish learning with the candor of a working cantor who knows her congregants by name.
Adult Education, Classes, and Workshops
Jewish education, for both children and adults, is described as a high priority at Cnesses Israel. Course offerings shift with the seasons and with the interests of the wider community, and the monthly newsletter carries the current schedule.
Recent and recurring class offerings, organized through Cantor Kate, include:
- Exploring Our Liturgy - a multi-session look at core prayers, including the Amidah, the Kaddishes, and the Aleinu.
- Finding God - an ongoing study group meeting in person at the synagogue (with a Zoom option) around Finding God: 10 Jewish Responses by Rifat Soncino and Daniel Syme. The book surveys Jewish thinking about the Divine from the Biblical period to the modern day.
- Jewish Approaches to the End of Life, Mourning, and Beyond - a two- or three-session Zoom workshop on Jewish laws, customs, and teachings about illness, death, mourning, and the afterlife.
- Tea with Cantor Kate - an informal gathering to ask questions about Judaism and to get to know one another, with either brown-bag snacks or nosh supplied by the shul.
The Cantor has also offered short Shavuot sessions combining study, an Oneg with dairy treats, and an evening devoted to the giving of the Torah at Sinai.
Social Groups and Community Life
Cnesses Israel maintains several active social groups that sustain Jewish living and support for Jewish causes. Sisterhood and Men's Club connect generations within the congregation. Affiliates include JWI International (Jewish Women's International) and Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America. A Book Club gathers members around Jewish and general-interest reading.
Beyond the formal calendar, the synagogue hosts community dinners, picnics, book-group meetings, sing-alongs, and movie screenings - an embodiment of the congregation's view that "a synagogue is not solely a house of prayer, but a gathering for all that life has to offer." Regular programs are typically held in the Community Stage and Auditorium.
The Building: Sanctuary, Chapel, Kitchen, Library
The South Baird Street building houses several distinct spaces. The Prayer Sanctuary, where Shabbat and festival services are led, sits beside a Historic Chapel. A Kosher Kitchen supports onegs, community dinners, and holiday preparation. A Library of Jewish theological and historical texts is open to members, with book checkout available. A small Gift Shop offers items for purchase through the treasurer or by appointment.
For larger programming, the Community Stage and Auditorium hosts holidays, parties, classes, and movie nights. While weddings, funerals, and life-cycle events take place in the sanctuary, the auditorium and other spaces can be reserved for congregational use.
Welcoming Guests - in the Jewish Tradition and at CCI
Welcoming strangers is one of the oldest Jewish values, drawn from the Talmud's Tractate Kiddushin and exemplified in Genesis 18 by Abraham, who sat at the opening of his tent ready to greet passersby. At Cnesses Israel, hachnasat orchim is taken personally: as the cantor has written, "I have never before served at a synagogue where visitors came so often!"
Recent guest groups have included the Green Bay Retired Men's Club, an eleventh- and twelfth-grade class from the Menominee Nation studying comparative religion, and a class from St. Norbert's College learning about sacred architecture, who, by their teacher's account, enjoyed the visit more than any other stop on their syllabus. Individual visitors arrive almost every week - college students exploring world religions, those considering conversion, friends of congregants, and the simply curious. The St. Norbert's students learned about the Torah scrolls and the symbols in the stained-glass windows; the Menominee Nation students, visiting during Sukkot, were welcomed into the sukkah for a demonstration of the lulav and etrog. As the cantor has noted, hachnasat orchim, in the words of Maimonides, "surpasses receiving the Divine Presence."
Beliefs and Practice at Cnesses Israel
Cnesses Israel describes itself as a synagogue, first and foremost, where "all who enter are family." Its open statement of welcome names Jews, members of Jewish families or partnerships, those who care about the Jewish community, and those simply interested in learning about Jewish faith and practice. The community is open to people of all faiths, races, genders, and levels of religious education.
Practice is rooted in the Jewish calendar. Members and visitors celebrate Shabbat and the festivals together - Passover, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, Simchat Torah, Purim, and Shavuot - and gather for an Omer-counting season that moves from the liberation of Pesach toward the giving of the Torah at Sinai. Liturgy, study, and the rhythms of the year sit alongside the congregation's stated belief that Jewish life is best sustained in community, with the door held open for anyone who wishes to enter.