Temple Emanu-El of Westfield sits on East Broad Street in the heart of Union County, a Reform Jewish congregation that has been gathering the Jewish families of Westfield and the surrounding towns for nearly three quarters of a century. With about 950 member households, the temple is one of the larger Reform congregations in New Jersey, and it is known locally for the way it marries tradition with a contemporary, often musical, Shabbat experience, a deeply programmed Early Learning Center, and a wide network of social action, fellowship, and lifelong learning opportunities. The building itself, marked by the eternal-flame motif that inspired the congregation's rebrand, hosts Shabbat worship, preschool classrooms, a Judaica shop, and a community room that members can reserve for celebrations.
Born on Broad Street: The 1950 Founding
In 1950, a group of Westfield Jewish families came together with a shared resolve: to create their own religious home. At the time, Jews could not purchase land in much of Westfield, and local residents circulated petitions against the founding of a synagogue. The founders pressed on, and with the support of the temple's first rabbi, the forty-three founding families built an approach to Jewish life that combined traditional liturgy with innovative Reform prayer and practice. That dual commitment, honoring what has been handed down while remaining open to change, has remained at the heart of Temple Emanu-El ever since.
Seven decades later, the congregation numbers roughly 950 households, many with multiple generations participating in ritual life, synagogue activities, and educational programming. The story of those original families, working creatively in the face of injustice, still shapes how the temple responds to new challenges and to its neighbors. The institution now stands on East Broad Street as one of the pillars of the Westfield community, with members drawn from Union County and beyond.
Two Rabbis, Two Cantors, and a Fifth-Year Intern
The senior rabbi is Rabbi Ethan Prosnit, a graduate of Clark University and Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion. Before entering the rabbinate, Rabbi Prosnit taught United States history and coached tennis in the Worcester public schools, worked at Tufts University Hillel, and partnered with American Jewish World Service and the Joint Distribution Committee. He is co-chair of Reform Jewish Voice of New Jersey, a Rabbi Balfour Brickner Fellow through the Religious Action Center, and a past member of the JDC-Entwine board. An avid sports fan who roots for the Jets, Mets, and Toronto Blue Jays, Rabbi Prosnit joined Temple Emanu-El in the summer of 2014. He lives in Westfield with his wife Arielle and their children.
The senior associate rabbi is Rabbi Victor Appell, a native New Yorker who grew up in the Reform Movement and served as a regional NFTY president in high school. After a career in sales and marketing, Rabbi Appell pursued the rabbinate at Hebrew Union College and went on to serve congregations in Illinois and New Jersey before joining the staff of the Union for Reform Judaism, where he served as Director of Small Congregations, co-directed the Joint Commission on Synagogue Management, and edited Ten Minutes of Torah. In May 2024, Hebrew Union College awarded Rabbi Appell an honorary Doctor of Divinity in recognition of his 25 years of service to the Jewish community. He, his husband, and their two sons live in Metuchen.
Music is led by Cantor Ilana Goldman, a Jersey Girl who studied at Lawrence University, received her Masters of Sacred Music at HUC-JIR, and completed two units of Clinical Pastoral Education as a chaplain intern at Bellevue Hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. She directs both the youth choir and the adult choir and brings a strong interest in music, prayer, and pastoral care to the bimah. Joining her is Cantor Ilana Mulcahy, who stepped into the role of assistant cantor in July 2026 after several years as the temple's cantorial intern. A graduate of Rutgers and Montclair State with prior experience as an elementary music teacher and a background in human resources, Cantor Mulcahy earned her cantorial ordination from the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music in May 2026 and serves as a Weitzman Fellow with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
The rabbinic intern for the year is Audrey Klepser, a fifth-year student at Hebrew Union College whose love of Jewish life took root at URJ Camp OSRUI and who went on to study at Kalamazoo College, the Pardes Institute in Jerusalem, Columbia/Barnard Hillel, and the Astoria Center of Israel.
Two beloved emeriti remain part of the temple's life. Rabbi Charles Kroloff served as Senior Rabbi for 36 years, from 1966 until his retirement in 2002, and the educational wing now bears his name. A past president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, he continues to serve Hebrew Union College as Vice President for Special Projects and remains active in the Westfield area. Cantor Martha Novick, invested in 1983, was the first female cantor to perform in a traditional cantorial concert in a major New York concert hall and currently serves as Vice President of the American Society for Jewish Music while teaching at HUC and the Jewish Theological Seminary's Miller Cantorial School.
Friday Night at Temple Emanu-El: Pre-Neg and Erev Shabbat
Friday night at Temple Emanu-El begins not in the sanctuary but in the Social Hall, where the congregation gathers at 5:00 PM for what the temple calls Pre-Neg. Think of it as the best happy hour of the week with a Shabbat twist: friends meet over food, beer, wine, mixed drinks, and kid-friendly options before the service. Pre-Neg is sponsored regularly by members celebrating a simcha or honoring a loved one, and the temple welcomes newcomers as the easiest on-ramp to Shabbat.
At 6:00 PM, the community moves into the sanctuary for Erev Shabbat, a one-hour service that blends English and Hebrew with a mix of contemporary and traditional music. In that hour the congregation celebrates milestones, marks births and losses, acknowledges the wider world, and embraces the gratitude and hope that Shabbat brings. The service is designed to be welcoming to anyone attending a Jewish service for the first time while remaining rooted enough to satisfy those who know the liturgy by heart. All Erev Shabbat services are livestreamed for members who cannot attend in person.
On certain Friday nights the sanctuary gives way to Tiny Tot Shabbat, a high-energy monthly service designed for families with children from infancy through age six. Held at 5:00 PM and occasionally on Saturday mornings, Tiny Tot Shabbat invites families to sing, dance, and pray together, with Pre-Neg open to everyone beforehand. The temple considers these gatherings a core on-ramp for the youngest members of the community.
Saturday Mornings: Three Ways to Pray
Saturday at Temple Emanu-El offers three distinct morning experiences, each with its own flavor.
The earliest is Holy Scrollers, which meets from 8:15 to 9:15 AM in the Lavy House and takes a lively, deep dive into the Torah portion of the week. Led in rotation by Rabbi Victor Appell, Rabbi Chuck Lightner, and Raziel Haimi-Cohen, the group weighs traditional and modern interpretations and seeks to broaden its range of reading from year to year. Full participation is available by Zoom for those who cannot make it in person.
At 9:00 AM on the second and fourth Saturday of each month, Simchat Shabbat gathers in the sanctuary for a participatory musical service led by one of the clergy together with folk musician Rick Calvert. Simchat Shabbat lifts the spirits with contemporary melodies, guitar, and accessible liturgy, reads the weekly Torah portion, and then turns to interactive Torah study. Dress is casual, the service runs about 75 minutes, and Zoom participation is available for those at a distance.
At 9:30 AM, the weekly Morning Minyan convenes in the Lavy House and has been a cornerstone of Shabbat at Temple Emanu-El for decades. The service blends traditional elements of prayer and Torah study with openness to questions, discussion, and exploration. Once a month the minyan zooms in on a particular prayer or element of the service, looking at its history, forms, symbolism, and function. Members observing Yahrzeit or marking other milestones are invited to share memories at the Torah, and an informal discussion follows the service.
B'nai Mitzvah services round out the morning. Sanctuary services begin at 10:30 AM and Chapel services begin at 10:45 AM, both livestreamed for friends and family who cannot attend.
The B'nai Mitzvah Journey
B'nai Mitzvah preparation at Temple Emanu-El is treated as a journey for the whole family. Students typically receive their date in fourth or fifth grade, lessons begin about six months before the service, and clergy assignments rotate so that each student works with the rabbis and cantors during the preparation period. Most students become B'nai Mitzvah on Saturday mornings in either the main sanctuary or Brody Chapel, with accommodations made for siblings and for families on long weekends or when Rosh Chodesh falls on a Sunday.
The Friday night before the service, the family attends Erev Shabbat. The B'nai Mitzvah family is called up at the front of the Social Hall before the service to read an English prayer and light the Shabbat candles with guidance from the rabbi or cantor, then joins the congregation in the sanctuary for the full Kabbalat Shabbat. On Saturday morning, students lead the service from the bimah with the cantor, chant Torah, and deliver a d'var Torah. Both the sanctuary and chapel services are livestreamed, and families receive a downloadable recording afterward.
Members of other faiths are warmly included. Interfaith families participate fully in the service, and the clergy work with each family to find meaningful honors for parents, grandparents, and siblings, including Torah aliyot with transliterated Hebrew and an English reading option for those who need more than four honors. Sisterhood's Judaica Shop, located in the Gallery, stocks traditional and contemporary tallitot, yads, jewelry, and kipot to mark the day, with all proceeds going back to the temple.
From the Early Learning Center Through Teens
Learning at Temple Emanu-El runs from infancy through adulthood. The Early Learning Center (ELC), under the direction of Jill Cimafonte (honored in 2024 for 25 years of service), is a play-based preschool with a Jewish lens. Children learn through hands-on exploration in TEVA, the outdoor nature classroom, with weekly school-wide Shabbat celebrations, music and movement specials, social-emotional curriculum, and a low teacher-to-child ratio. The ELC welcomes all families into the Temple community and offers flexible class options to fit the realities of working parents.
Camp Wonder, the summer program for children ages two and three, extends the ELC's warm, nurturing environment into the warmer months, with options for half-day and extended-day campers.
The Youth Learning and Engagement (YLE) program provides K-12 religious education grounded in Jewish learning and community. Emily Leath, the Director of Youth Learning and Engagement, and Assistant Director Jonathan Schevelowitz lead a graded curriculum for kindergarten through seventh grade, with TEEns programming for grades eight through twelve. Highlights include the TEWnies youth choir, which sings at Kabbalat Shabbat services, Chanukah concerts, and visits to senior homes, and the upper-grade retreats and travel programs that connect students with broader Jewish life.
On Friday afternoons at 5:15 PM once a month, clergy offer Pre-Neg Teachings in the Library - a thirty-minute look at a piece of liturgy, an upcoming holiday, or a relevant Jewish text - giving families another reason to come early to Pre-Neg and learn something new.
Tikkun Olam: Repairing the World Locally
Tikkun Olam sits at the heart of Temple Emanu-El's identity. The temple's Tikkun Olam Committee, which meets monthly, coordinates a network of programs that put Jewish values into action at home, in Union County, and around the world.
The Caring Community shows up for temple members during life's meaningful and challenging moments: volunteers deliver challahs on Fridays, bring meals during illness or recovery, make friendly calls and visits, and help with rides to appointments. Bagged with Love, the temple's signature food insecurity program, assembles and distributes bags of groceries to neighbors facing hunger. The temple also partners with Family Promise, the national organization working to prevent and end homelessness, supporting their efforts through fundraising, meal provision, and seasonal goodie bags even though the congregation no longer physically hosts families.
The Westfield Fun Club, launched in 2016 by temple members Alissa Berger and Jenny Tananbaum, partners with refugee families in Union County and elsewhere in New Jersey. The club meets on select Saturday mornings at the temple and offers ESL classes, resume building, job search assistance, citizenship preparation, and children's homework tutoring, music, art, book club, and karate, along with emergency food and essential-item deliveries. The work is grounded in the Jewish imperative to welcome the stranger.
Environmental stewardship runs through the Green Team, which organizes park clean-ups, invasive-species work, shoe recycling, and educational events under the banner of Shomrei Adamah - Keepers of the Earth. Temple Emanu-El is also a proud participant in the ADL's Signature Synagogue Program, raising awareness of antisemitism and hate through congregation-wide education and engagement.
Adult Learning: Bible, Theology, and the Weekly Torah
Adults at Temple Emanu-El have a rich menu of study opportunities. Bible Class meets on Tuesday mornings at 9:45 AM in the Lavy House, with no prior experience required and Zoom access available. Periodically, clergy and visiting teachers offer multi-week courses on Jewish thought; recent examples include a four-week Thinking About God class with Rabbi Mary L. Zamore, exploring Jewish answers to questions about God, belief, doubt, prayer, and meaning, and Taste of Oral Torah with Razi Haimi-Cohen, a biweekly study of the oral tradition's vast and growing corpus of interpretation.
The congregation is a long-time partner of the Jewish Book Council and hosts an active author series, bringing writers such as Bruce Feiler, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, Josh Cutler, June Hersh, Alon Shaya, Mark Oppenheimer, Roy Altman, Jonathan Greenblatt (CEO of the ADL), and Pamela Nadell to the temple for talks, book discussions, and film screenings tied to Jewish life, history, and contemporary issues. A Mexico City trip and ongoing travel programs round out the adult learning calendar.
Music as Prayer
Music is woven into nearly every part of Temple Emanu-El's life. The Adult Choir, directed by Cantor Goldman, sings at Friday night services, the High Holy Days, and select community gatherings throughout the year, welcoming singers of all ages and experience.
The TEWnies, the temple's youth choir for students in grades two through seven, sings at Kabbalat Shabbat services, Chanukah concerts, in senior homes, and at temple events. The TEWnies' mission is to bring fun and music to Jewish life at Temple Emanu-El and across the greater Westfield area, with Cantor Goldman leading rehearsals and building the choir into a true community of young singers.
Community Within Community: Affinity Groups and Gather Groups
Temple Emanu-El is large enough to support a wide range of affinity groups, each with its own rhythm.
The Men's Club meets on the second Thursday of every month at 7:30 PM and supports the congregation through men's dinners out, a men's Seder, sukkah building, food delivery to the needy, and scholarships for youth attending Jewish summer camp and NFTY conventions. Members maintain the engraved Tree of Life wall in the renovated Temple Gallery.
Sisterhood, affiliated with Women of Reform Judaism, sponsors scholarships for youth attending Jewish camps and studying in Israel, decorates the bimah and sukkah for the holidays, staffs the Judaica Shop, visits Jewish patients in the hospital, brings challahs during the High Holidays, and organizes a model Seder at a local nursing home each Passover.
Hamishim, a social program for members in their sixties and beyond, gathers several times a year for wine tastings, entertainers, Shabbat dinners, desserts at dusk, and outings, all designed to build friendships among seasoned adults. Programs are supported in part by the Grotta Fund for Older Adults.
Social Nest gathers adults whose children are in late high school, college, or already out on their own, offering a relaxed setting to reconnect with peers and rediscover personal passions.
Westfield Fun Club, the temple's refugee support initiative described above, also operates as a member-led community.
Gather Groups are small, peer-led groups of eight to fifteen adults who meet off-site around shared interests. Current offerings include Casino Club, Schmooze and Savor (couples in their 30s through 50s), TEEquilla Tasting, Stitch and Kvetch (a fiber arts circle), Early Risers (morning walks around Mindowaskin Park), Poker Group, the Temple Emanu-El Social Bridge Club, Friends Playing Frisbee, Football Fans, Knicks Fans, Mahj-el Tov!, and Intermediate Mah Jongg. Each group is led by one or two peer Captains, with staff support, and members are asked to sign up for just one group so that as many people as possible can participate.
The Building: Spaces for Simchas and Sacred Moments
The Temple Emanu-El campus on East Broad Street includes several spaces available for member celebrations, baby namings, bris, b'nai mitzvah receptions, meetings, and other gatherings.
The Greifer Sacks room, refurbished in 2021, can accommodate up to 250 guests and includes a large commercial kitchen. The adjacent Stage Side room, separated by a movable wall, can be combined with Greifer Sacks to expand capacity even further. The Gallery is used for cocktail receptions and sits next to Greifer Sacks, while the Community Room seats about 70 and includes a full kitchen.
The building is also the spiritual home for the full range of Jewish lifecycle events. Clergy officiate weddings for members and their children, both at the temple and elsewhere, plan b'nai mitzvah and conversion journeys, lead baby namings (b'rit bat and b'rit chayim) and brit milah, and walk families through funerals, Jewish burial practices, and mourning. Pastoral support is available through the clergy for any member facing sickness, loss, or other difficulty.
Supporting the Temple
Dues cover only about 35 percent of the cost of the temple's programming, education, worship, and events, with the remainder coming from philanthropy. The Annual Appeal is the cornerstone of giving each year, and members can also support the temple through tribute gifts, legacy gifts from wills, IRAs, retirement plans, or life insurance, the Path of Peace (engraved bricks), memorial plaques, and discretionary funds directed by Rabbi Prosnit, Rabbi Appell, Cantor Goldman, or Cantor Mulcahy. Sponsoring a Pre-Neg - $360 per week - is a popular way to mark a simcha or honor a loved one, with the sponsorship recognized in the weekly newsletter and at the gathering itself.
Qualified Charitable Distributions from IRAs, gifts of appreciated stock, and Donor-Advised Fund contributions are all welcomed, with Director of Development Carolyn Starke available to walk members through the details. Temple Emanu-El's full legal name is Temple Emanu-El of Westfield, New Jersey, and its EIN is 22-1686929.
Beliefs and Identity
Temple Emanu-El describes itself as a modern Reform Jewish congregation that honors tradition while bringing a fresh, energetic spirituality to contemporary life. Its stated values rest on six pillars: that Judaism is ever-evolving, hopeful, and joyous; that the community is inspired by Torah; that members act with moral leadership and integrity through philanthropy, tikkun olam, and civic engagement; that learning is a lifelong journey; that innovation is the key to the congregation's future; and that the community is committed to Israel, supporting travel, education, and engagement with Israeli culture, history, and communities, while also welcoming questions and respectful disagreement.
The congregation is a proud member of the Reform Movement, and partners with the Union for Reform Judaism, Women of Reform Judaism, the ADL's Signature Synagogue Program, and the Jewish Book Council, among other organizations. Members come from a wide range of backgrounds, and interfaith families are warmly welcomed to participate fully in worship, learning, and lifecycle events.
Coming Up at Temple Emanu-El
The rhythm of the year at Temple Emanu-El moves from the High Holy Days through Sukkot, Simchat Torah, Chanukah, Purim, and Passover, with each festival marked by services, family programming, and community meals. The Pre-Neg every Friday night, the Saturday morning minyan and study groups, and the daily life of the Early Learning Center and religious school provide a steady backdrop, while events such as Margaritas in the Sukkah, the Sukkah Hop, College Darty, Ladies Night, and the Desserts at Dusk gatherings fill the calendar with opportunities to connect.
Temple Emanu-El is, at its heart, a community that prizes joy alongside tradition and welcomes anyone seeking a modern, spiritual, inclusive Reform Jewish home in Westfield.