By Bill Simons
Sunday, June 30: My wife, Nancy, and I take our seats in the amphitheater at Chautauqua Institution, not as adherents, but as reverent observers. Examining the worship program, I felt uncomfortable examining the scripture portion from Paul’s epistle to Galatians 1:13-24: “You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it…”
In her sermon, “The Declaration of Independence: We are Free from Grandma’s Context,” Reverend Cynthia Moore-Koikoi, bishop of the United Methodist Church for the Western Pennsylvania Conference, examined Paul’s words. While she affirmed the message of Jesus and the cross, she also acknowledged pathways in other faiths to embrace freedom: “Because this freedom is not dependent on our faith, it is available to all – Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist.” An African-American, Moore-Koikoi confronted the racism and prejudice that our forebears expressed, stating that we can love and honor our ancestors while emancipating ourselves from their errors. As she spoke, a screen projected a message of inclusivity: “So may Torah, cross, and crescent, each a sign of life made new, point us t’ward your love and justice, earth at peace and one in you.” Leaving the amphitheater at service’s end, I felt as though Moore-Koikoi had traced the evolution of mainline Protestantism in America – and Chautauqua – from sectarian exclusivity to interfaith pluralism.
In 1874, Methodist Minister John Heyl Vincent and Lewis Miller, entrepreneur and philanthropist, founded an institution to improve the quality of Protestant Sunday School instruction. Located in western New York, the project derived its name from proximity to Lake Chautauqua. From modest beginnings in tent domiciles, Chautauqua Institution grew into a sizable enterprise with classroom buildings, diverse places of worship, libraries, museums, family-owned homes, condominiums, seasonal rentals, recreational facilities and restaurants. Modern Chautauqua is a summer encampment of interfaith pluralism, community, culture and learning. In addition to clergy, American presidents, leading intellectuals, renowned maestros and iconic entertainers have graced Chautauqua’s Atheneum stage. Rather than fleeing, Chautauquans rushed onto that stage on August 12, 2022, when novelist Salman Rushdie was stabbed, to subdue the would-be assassin and to administer life-saving medical care. Over nine weekly sessions, contemporary Chautauqua hosts more than 100,000 attendees each summer.
As recounted in “Shalom Chautauqua: The Hebrew Congregation and the Jewish Presence” by Betty and Arthur Salz, the early institution served white Protestants. In 1891, a Chautauqua address by Reform Rabbi Gustav Gottheil constituted a departure. Composer George Gershwin, needing a quiet summer venue to work incognito in 1925, became the first Jew in residence at Chautauqua. Soon thereafter, Jewish musicians found a place in the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, but they were domiciled apart from other residents. Except for the musicians’ presence, into the 1950s a “gentlemen’s agreement” prevented Jews from renting or purchasing property at Chautauqua. Two pubescent girls provided the impetus for the first Jewish services at Chautauqua in 1959, and the Hebrew Congregation formally organized in 1960. Since then, the Jewish population, infrastructure and activism has grown exponentially as Chautauqua has come to embrace an inclusive ecumenicalism.
Following approval of the governing board, 1965 marked the initial Jewish purchase of a home on the Chautauqua grounds. The Everett Jewish Life Center opened in 2009 with a Chabad House following in 2014. Although occasional religious controversies occur, including a dispute over the BDS movement, tolerance and respect set the tone at Chautauqua, evidenced by the Abrahamic initiative to promote dialogue and cooperation between Christians, Jews and Muslims. Today, approximately 25 percent of Chautauqua residents are Jewish. The current challenge is to continue building interfaith goodwill while not blurring the distinctions between Judaism and other religions.
Over the course of three summers, I have come to Chautauqua, with my wife, Nancy, to learn, reflect and teach, providing compensated courses on the transformative year 1960, Jewish baseball and Franklin Roosevelt. In 2024, we roomed at the Presbyterian House, welcoming the opportunity to make new friends from other faiths. One evening, the pre-dinner grace was given by a Buddhist. Reverend Mark Davis and I discussed the shared dilemma of responding to interfaith couples within our respective congregations, Presbyterian and Jewish.
On Friday, July 5, I attended a Kabbalat Shabbat service on the last evening of my Chautauqua stay, just as I had done the year before. Outdoors on the shore of Lake Chautauqua, the Kabbalat Shabbat service was presided over by Rabbi Samuel Stahl, just as it was in 2023. He is the rabbi emeritus of the Reform Temple Beth El in San Antonio, TX. An iconic presence over two generations amongst Chautauqua Jews and in the larger religious life of the Institute, Stahl, at 84, remains robust of voice and mind. More than 100 worshippers, approximately 40 of them from the rabbi’s San Antonio congregation, attended the service. Some of the men were bare-headed, others wore a kippah and several sported baseball hats. A Team Israel cap, emblazoned with a Star of David, sat atop my head.
I found myself immersed in Stahl’s sermon. Discussing heightened concern for Israel at a time of peril, Stahl asserted the need to combat the Hamas terrorists who hold Gaza in thrall and intend to inflict more carnage on Israel. He also emphasized the need for compassion toward innocent Gazan civilians. Then, the rabbi articulated an uncomfortable truth: many attendees question the existence of God due to an absence of scientific proof of divinity, the existence of evil in the world and an unwillingness to surrender individual autonomy. Many of us do not go to services regularly at our community synagogues. We may regard ourselves as atheists, but we are not or we would not have gathered for Kabbalat Shabbat. Moreover, Judaism is more concerned with deed than creed, and the true atheists are the ones who loudly proclaim piety while committing evil.
After the service, I fraternized with fellow Jews over pizza and sides while awaiting my turn to speak with Stahl. As we spoke, I felt a quickening of my Jewish identity and resolved next year at Chautauqua.