In 1975, Lincoln Square Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side had become the hottest ticket in town. And no ticket was required to attend services at the 600-seat Orthodox congregation that, under the leadership of the charismatic young rabbi, Steven (later Shlomo) Riskin, was filled to overflowing each Shabbat. More than 1,500 people were attending the dozens of weekly adult education classes offered, from simple Hebrew to advanced Talmud.
At that point, the synagogue’s energetic educational director, Ephraim Buchwald, 29, suggested that Lincoln Square create a Shabbat service with the potential to reach the majority of American Jews — those who were unaffiliated or marginalized and felt disenfranchised from traditional synagogues and much of Jewish life. The result was the Beginners Service, a weekly gathering that included a selection of prayers in Hebrew and English, a summary and discussion of the weekly Torah portion, and most important, an open environment that encouraged questions, comments and give-and-take between Rabbi Buchwald and a wide range of several dozen attendees.
Fifty years later, on June 27, the rabbi, now known as a pioneer in the world of Orthodox Jewish outreach, stepped down from his post. Toward the end of a long conversation a few days later, I asked him to provide contact information for some of the program’s more memorable participants, past and present, so I could interview them.
The next day he emailed me a list he compiled of “noted notables, by category,” which included one-line bios of 117 Beginners Service attendees in “academia, business, celebrity, celebrity relatives, education, Jewish communal activism, journalism/media/publishing, law, law enforcement, medicine and psychology, philanthropy, science and math, show business and entertainment, and Torah.”
The list, and his preparation of it, gave me a glimpse into the depth of Rabbi Buchwald’s reach and impact on the spiritual lives of thousands of men and women for the last five decades. Each of the former and current students of his that I subsequently spoke with described him as having re-energized and enriched them in profound ways through his teachings, not only of Jewish ritual and text but of modeling a life of meaning and purpose. Each said they had been a guest at the Buchwald Shabbat table more than once, where they were welcomed warmly by the rabbi and his wife, Aidel.
Allan Leicht, a writer and producer for theater, movies and television, discovered the Beginners Service more out of curiosity than commitment, after moving from Brooklyn to the Upper West Side with his actress wife, Renee Lippin, in 1980.
“I was looking for a synagogue to go to on Saturday mornings, but after meeting this young, enthusiastic rabbi, he won me over completely,” the soft-spoken Leicht explained. “Rabbi Buchwald’s lively discussions” about the prayers and Torah portion “were addictive,” he recalled. The rabbi “never invalidated anyone’s point of view.”
Leicht began to observe Shabbat and Jewish holidays more fully, despite the challenges presented in working in the entertainment world. He credits Rabbi Buchwald for his transformation. “I became re-awakened to my Judaism.
More than 40 years later, Rachel Priester, who was raised Christian, had a similar reaction to Rabbi Buchwald’s impact on her spiritual life. “He helps people find their way to, or back to, Judaism,” said Priester, who moved to the Upper West Side a year and a half ago and sought out Lincoln Square’s Beginners Service on her path toward Judaism. Rabbi Buchwald “welcomes you warmly and reaches out to everyone on their own level and makes you aware that you are part of something bigger, part of a community of tradition and prayer.”
Priester completed her Orthodox conversion shortly before Shavuot this year and now attends the early Shabbat morning “hashkama” minyan at Lincoln Square each week in addition to the Beginners Service, which she says “continues to bring me great comfort.”
Short in stature, prodigious in enthusiasm, charisma and compassion, Rabbi Buchwald, 80, has become an inveterate selfless promoter, using his educational and marketing talents to showcase the beauty of Judaism. A favorite story he tells is of the 19th century Chasidic leader, the Kotzker Rebbe, who was asked about two people on a ladder, one on the fourth rung and one on the 10th. “Which one is higher?” his students asked. “It depends on which one is climbing up and which one is going down,” the Rebbe answered.
“As long as you’re going in the right direction – that’s our motto,” Rabbi Buchwald told me. “It’s about giving people a positive, joyous Jewish experience. And the key ingredients are passion and follow-up.”
Tom Steinberg, CEO of a diversified investment firm and a Judaics educator at Orthodox yeshivas in Israel, views his time as a Beginners Service attendee in the early 1980s as a pivotal waystation between his Reform childhood in the San Francisco area and the many years he has spent in the Israeli yeshiva world.
He says he met Rabbi Buchwald soon after he moved to New York to start a job in finance and had decided he wanted to become observant. “On my first visit to Lincoln Square, I met the rabbi and he immediately invited me to lunch for that Shabbat,” Steinberg recalled. He found the rabbi’s teachings “masterful,” and was moved by the warmth of the Buchwald family, where he was a frequent Shabbat guest.
Over time, Steinberg moved toward a more “yeshivish” life in Jerusalem and, like his mentor, became involved in kiruv, or outreach, to young people. He has remained close to Rabbi Buchwald, and says he deeply appreciates “the amazing energy it takes to create a new organization” and keep it growing for decades. “He literally carried me on his shoulders at my wedding,” Steinberg said, attributing the feat to the rabbi’s “spiritual strength.”
In reflecting on how the Beginners Service has changed in recent years, Rabbi Buchwald said that since the Covid pandemic, the number of those who attend the three-hour sessions has decreased a bit from about 50 people a week to between 30 and 40. He estimates that half of the regulars now are not Jewish, about equally divided between those who have a Jewish spouse or partner and those who are spiritual seekers drawn to Judaism on their own.
Educator and opera singer Jennifer Moore, raised Catholic, was interested in Judaism before she met her observant Jewish boyfriend. “Seeing his devotion to his faith and how he lives his life made me draw closer,” she said, and Rabbi Buchwald’s “generosity of spirit and personal interest in each person’s journey” was instrumental in her decision to convert to Judaism. She said that becoming a Jew after Oct. 7 felt like “the right thing to do. I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t aligned with my values.”
Adrianne McMillan, an African-American woman who was born Episcopal, said Rabbi Buchwald made her feel comfortable the first time she attended the Beginners Service four years ago, and over time, “he made me feel like a daughter.” Her conversion took place in 2024, and she still walks four miles from her Harlem home to Lincoln Square on Shabbat.
Rabbi Buchwald launched the National Jewish Outreach Program (NJOP) in 1987, and promoted its first project, the Hebrew Reading Crash Course, through an ad campaign developed by the late copywriter Jesse Cogan. It included jingles on the radio, toll-free numbers, and billboards on buses and subways with catchy slogans like, “This Rosh Hashanah, Pray in the Original,” and “This Passover, Experience the Exodus From Right to Left.” The course began at Lincoln Square, with 5,000 people signing up at the outset, and later went national.
Rabbi Buchwald said reading Hebrew was key for feeling comfortable at synagogue, that learning it was relatively easy and that “it was neutral and non-threatening” compared to Shabbat observance. “For many who took the course, Hebrew reading became the gateway to greater Jewish involvement,” the rabbi has said.
Over the years NJOP has helped establish Beginners Services at synagogues around the country as well as programs like “Turn Friday Night Into Shabbat” – based on a phrase Cogan created and which became NJOP’s motto – and Shabbat Across America, a once-a-year synagogue service for unaffiliated and marginally affiliated Jews that has drawn more than 1.5 million people and now takes place in more than 40 countries, according to Rabbi Buchwald.
The Beginners Service will continue, Lincoln Square has assured its community, and though he will miss those weekly encounters, Rabbi Buchwald plans to keep busy with a highly ambitious list of projects. They include raising “billions of dollars” to allow Jewish day schools around the country to provide a free education, and promoting a campaign to have Jews around the world recite Sh’ma Yisrael twice a day “with love.” Perhaps most challenging: “convincing people to stop talking in shul,” Rabbi Buchwald said.
If anyone can do it, he can.
