Citing Kaplan’s work seventy years later, Abraham Karp argued that despite declining membership, the synagogue remained “the preeminent institution in American Jewish life. Jose Luis Raota/Getty ImagesAccording to the Pew Research Center’s 2021 survey of American Jews, 46% of Jews by religion belong to a synagogue. By that standard, no institution in Jewish life comes close to the synagogue. Federations employed staff dedicated to synagogue capacity building, while initiatives like Synagogue 2000/3000, Synagogues: Transformation and Renewal (STAR) and the ReImagine Project challenged congregations to rethink what a synagogue could be. At the same time, thought leaders like Ron Wolfson, Isa Aron, Kerry Olitzky, Larry Hoffman and my teacher, Bob Leventhal z”l, were actively raising the bar for synagogue life.