The Challenge &
The Opportunity
Northwest Philadelphia is rich with energy, diversity, and civic pride. Yet, many Jewish individuals, interfaith couples, and families remain disconnected from Jewish communal life. Traditional structures often leave singles, non-traditional families, and older adults feeling on the margins.
The NWJC addresses this head-on by building a home designed to bridge these gaps. We actively engage folks who are unaffiliated, ensuring that Jewish life is celebratory, vibrant, and accessible to anyone who wants to belong.
Our Core Values & Strategic Pillars
Our community is anchored by six core pillars synthesized directly from the desires of our neighbors based on a survey, five focus groups, and over fifty one-on-one conversations conducted by Rabbi Megan in the summer of 2026.
Accessibility of Jewish Life: We ensure Jewish life, text, and ritual are completely accessible regardless of formal Jewish background, literacy, or prior knowledge. We create opportunities for those who seek to deepen their Jewish learning.
Welcoming Interfaith Families & Couples: We offer a profound, non-judgmental welcome to multifaith partnerships, creating an environment where non-Jewish partners participate completely and authentically.
Intergenerational Connections: We build spaces where single adults across their 20s to 40s, young families, and older adults gather, share wisdom, and celebrate side-by-side.
Opportunities to Sing & Pray Together: We cultivate high-energy, soulful, and forward-looking song and prayer environments that retain our familiar structural framework while remaining engaging and participatory.
Mutual Aid & Supporting Each Other: We take collective responsibility for one another, weaving a tight-knit web of mutual support that extends beyond the walls of any singular event.
Local Engagement & Home-Based Hosting: We emphasize deep connection to our local neighborhood and focus heavily on hosting folks directly in our homes for intimate, warm gatherings.
Meet our Team
Our Founding Advisory Board
Rachel Falkove
Adam Darer
Christy Cook
Jessica Hermann
Kate Wallis
Lauren Fein
Sarah Bursky
Elissa Yaffe
Lauren Zalut
Ashley Netanel
Rabbi Reba Carmel
Coming soon…
Our Davening/Music Team
If you haven’t encountered one before, a davening team isn’t a traditional, formal choir that performs on a stage for a passive audience. Instead, it is an intentional group of musicians and soulful vocalists who sit directly within or alongside the community to act as a "musical engine." The goal is to create a strong, supportive sound that empowers the entire room to drop their inhibitions and sing along in a powerful, participatory music circle.
Interested in joining the team? Email Rabbi Megan.
Our Founder and Spiritual Leader
Rabbi Megan GoldMarche practices a rabbinate built on co-creation, deep listening, and shared holy space, bringing Jewish leadership out of the institution and into the neighborhood.
She teaches accessible, living Torah and offers radical hospitality, warmly welcoming interfaith couples, those on the edges of Jewish life, and seekers alike. Ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2014, Rabbi Megan has been building Jewish community since her religious school days, with a rabbinate that has included Hillel, Base, and, most recently, Tribe 12.