Congregation Sons and Daughters of Ruth: A Jewish spiritual home on Block Island
- Simon Lichter
- Jul 13
- 5 min read
Original publication link by Jewish Rhode Island:
Written by Seth Chitwood, July 2026
BLOCK ISLAND - Witnessing a Block Island sunset is magical but observing it alongside the small but enduring Jewish community gathered at the island’s St. Andrews Parish Center on Friday nights is truly spectacular.
Congregation Sons and Daughters of Ruth, founded in the 1970s and often known as CSDR, is the island’s only Jewish congregation and spiritual home for its seasonal residents, year-round islanders and visitors who find themselves looking for Jewish community.
“We put chairs in a giant circle,” said Joel Maxman, a founding member of CSDR. “During regular Shabbats, we start at 8 p.m., and then we do the service, and then we always have kiddush with challah and some schmoozing time as well.”
The congregation’s story began more than four decades ago, with a handful of Jewish families who had summer homes on Block Island and began wondering whether they could hold High Holiday services without leaving the island.
Longtime member Maxman, whose family first came to Block Island in 1978, remembers the earliest gatherings as informal and improvised.
“Somebody suggested doing a Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur service,” he said. “A couple of us went over to the mainland for Rosh Hashanah to Beth David in Narragansett, and then somebody said, ‘Hey, let’s just do a Yom Kippur service here.’”
The informal gathering grew into an organized congregation by the 1980s. A year-round resident, Elliot Taubman, trained to lead services, as did summer resident Richard Weisbrod.
“Between the two of them, they led the services and pulled the thing together for maybe 15 years,” Maxman said.
Taubman, who was affectionately known as Cantor Elliot, died in 2025, and his memory remains part of the congregation’s story.
“Our group is definitely smaller as the original congregants have either moved to Florida or died off or moved to the mainland,” he added. “We’ve had our ups and downs, but a lot of people stood up and started learning how to lead services and pulling things together.”
Today, CSDR remains unaffiliated with a denomination, though it uses Reform prayer books. Maxman describes the congregation as egalitarian and welcoming to Jews across a wide range of backgrounds.
“We started out unaffiliated,” he said. “We got help from a Navy chaplain who was a Reconstructionist rabbi, who came over from Newport and helped us figure out how to do it.”
During the summer season, generally from Memorial Day through Labor Day, the congregation holds Friday night Shabbat services. Depending on when the Jewish calendar falls, CSDR also gathers for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Some years, especially when the holidays align with the late-summer island calendar, attendance can swell dramatically.
CSDR’s current president, David Brody, is a part-time Block Island resident who lives full time in Manhattan. Like many members, his connection to the island began with family summers and deepened through the friendships built at the congregation.
“We had one Rosh Hashanah service where we ran out of chairs,” said Brody. “We had 75 or 80 people. I think it was the year Rosh Hashanah ended up being on Labor Day weekend, or right after Labor Day weekend, and a lot of families stayed out.”
More often, Brody said Friday night services draw between 10 and 30 people, with a core membership of about 40 families. The mix includes summer residents, a small number of year-round Islanders, weekend guests and vacationers who search for a Jewish congregation on Block Island and discover CSDR.
“Mostly it’s summer people and a couple of year-rounders,” Brody said. “But we do get people who sort of got off the boat, looked up ‘Block Island Jewish Congregation,’ found us somehow and showed up on a Friday night.”
Simon Lichter, a longtime summer Islander and volunteer helping the congregation with outreach and organization said that everybody who’s there, in a very genuine way, wants to be there to connect with the local Jewish community.
“It creates a spirit that, in some ways, is much different than what you might find in other synagogues,” he said, describing it as a havurah kind of style.
“Very heimish, very intimate. We do services in a circle led by someone, and then there’s also someone who gives a d’var Torah. We ask some questions, so it’s very down to earth,” he said.
CSDR does not own a synagogue building. Over the years, the congregation has met in living rooms, community spaces and several island churches that opened their doors. It eventually found a steady home at St. Andrews Parish Center a community space associated with the Catholic parish.
The congregation also has its own Torah, donated by the Draper family, a prominent year-round Block Island family with long ties to the Jewish community.
“It needed restoration work, as most Torah scrolls do,” Maxman said. “The congregation paid to restore it. And now it’s in a hopefully safe room in their house, because we don’t have a whole lot of storage space in the parish center.”
Over the decades, CSDR has marked many milestones of Jewish life on the island. There have been Jewish weddings, community bar mitzvahs and High Holy Day gatherings that brought extended families together.
The Abrams-Draper family, among the island’s longtime year-round Jewish residents, celebrated the bar mitzvahs of three sons with the help of tutors and the broader congregation.
While CSDR is most active in the summer, its leaders are working to strengthen its year-round connections. The congregation has begun building a relationship with Congregation Beth David in Narragansett, hoping to create a mainland connection for Islanders who want access to services, programs or holiday celebrations in the off-season.
“We want to have them as a sister synagogue, like a mainland synagogue,” Brody said. “Access to more Jewish community that people can either Zoom into or physically attend.”
Leaders have also discussed possibilities such as helping Block Island families attend Passover seders on the mainland, including through home hospitality with Rhode Island Jewish families.
“We’re trying to integrate ourselves with the larger Jewish Rhode Island community,” Lichter added.
CSDR is also becoming more visible beyond the island. Under Lichter’s volunteer leadership, the congregation has created a website, JewishBlockIsland.org, and established a social media presence.
Lichter, who formerly served as executive director of the Block Island Chamber of Commerce, sees this as part of a new chapter for CSDR.
“We built the website, we have a social media presence, and we’re formalizing this board. I think we’re in a great 2.0 spot for the congregation,” he said.
Brody said the congregation’s 40-year history carries particular meaning at a time when many Jews are seeking visible and welcoming spaces.
“Especially with antisemitism and finding it hard to express yourself Jewishly in the public space, it’s beautiful that Block Island is able to maintain and develop a Jewish presence through 40 years,” Lichter said. “I think that’s a beautiful example of resilience of the Jewish people.”
That is part of the congregation’s purpose: to be there when someone is looking.
“One thing that I do whenever I travel anywhere is I look for the synagogue and see if I can fit going to services into whatever trip I’m doing,” Maxman said.
“This is a community of Jewish people who really do live and embody Jewish values. It’s just great to connect with those people when you’re here.”
SETH CHITWOOD (www.sethchitwood.com), of Barrington, is a features reporter for The Standard-Times, in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He is also the creative director of the award-winning Angelwood Pictures production company.
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