Published: 4 June 2018
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Now Ikar — whose name roughly translates as “essence” — is planning to defy another taboo. It recently announced that it is going to construct its own building, from scratch, on a piece of property in Los Angeles’ Midtown area.
To raise the necessary cash, Ikar is planning to do something rare: Get donors from coast to coast to help fund a building they don’t even go to. From renting to owning, from local presence to national — Will the Ikar of the future hold onto the unconventional approach to Judaism that made it so beloved in the first place?
“We don’t want to build another shul,” said Melissa Balaban, Ikar’s executive director. “There are plenty of those. We want to build a place for innovation.”
Ikar was founded by in 2004 in a Santa Monica living room by Balaban and some two-dozen other people, including its rabbi, Sharon Brous. Brous was ordained at the Conservative movement’s flagship Jewish Theological Seminary.
FULL STORY Ikar is building something. Just don’t call it a synagogue (Forward)
Photo: Nikki Casey
