The beauty, benefits, and challenges of living way out of town

I’ve only ever lived out of town. I grew up in Des Moines, Iowa (yes, really), and became frum in the wonderfully warm community in St. Louis, Missouri. The first time I came to Cleveland, I remember standing on South Taylor Road, in awe that I was in front of a kosher grocery store, next to a frum clothing store, and across from the Torah day school my children would one day attend.

Though I love traveling to bigger Jewish cities — the first time I visited Brooklyn, I thought I was in some sort of frum wonderland — my heart will always be with small out-of-town communities. You may not get the perks of numerous frum amenities there, but what you will find is plenty of teamwork, idealism, passion, and warmth.

Portland, Oregon

100 shomer Shabbos families

Two shuls, two mikvaos

An average home of 2,000 square feet goes for around $600K

Congregation Kesser Israel is the oldest Orthodox shul in Oregon

About 40,000 Jews in Portland total, with Jewish history going back to 1849

Eleanor Warshaw grew up in Portland, Oregon, but spent much of her childhood fantasizing about leaving it. As a child, she visited extended family in Los Angeles often and was always sad when it came time to leave. “My childhood in Portland was wonderful, but I was desperate for more friends and more opportunities,” she shares.

Since there’s no Jewish high school in Portland, Eleanor eventually ended up at Bruriah High School in New Jersey. After seminary, she attended Stern College and then met her husband, who was studying in Shor Yoshuv. The first few years of marriage, they lived in Far Rockaway, and Eleanor began nursing school at Maimonides in Boro Park.

“Finally, I was your typical frum girl,” she chuckles. “I was living the dream that I’d fantasized about as a teenager — operating in the thick of the frum world. But wildly enough, I began to realize that I didn’t really like it. I couldn’t find my niche.”

Both she and her husband, an Israeli whose family had moved to Baltimore when he was a teen, had a desire to live in a community where they could make a difference. So they decided to move to Portland.

“When people hear about us living here, they sometimes ask, ‘Why would you do that to yourself?’ As if I’m hurting myself,” says Eleanor. “But some people get it, people who understand the idea of fresh air and a calm, happy lifestyle. I wish everyone understood the value of what it’s like seeing so many different types of Jews in shul — young and old, religious, semi-religious, becoming religious, or not. Everyone is together, everyone is working literally as a team, making this micro-community go. It’s incredible.”

The phrase “kol Yisrael areivem zeh l’zeh — all of Israel is responsible for one another,” is a daily lived experience in smaller communities. “Really, this community only works with teamwork,” Eleanor says. “You can stay anonymous in a larger community, but here… you can’t. You’re going to end up on a board or leading a committee. Because if you don’t get it done, it’s not happening. You can’t come to a small community and sit back and relax.”

Eleanor’s father was involved with building the mikveh in Portland. “I grew up with the story of how when they needed water to start it, they drove to Mount Hood to get snow. Imagine — a group of Jewish men with buckets going to the mountain, filling the buckets with snow to bring back to be able to start the mikveh.”

With the absence of an Amazing Savings or Gourmet Glatt, what does preparing for Yom Tov look like? “It looks like teamwork,” Eleanor shares. “Four or five months before Pesach, my WhatsApp is exploding with people who want to split bulk items or are trying to figure out where to find a particular item. We all help each other out.”

Chicken, meat, and dairy items can be found at some local stores, and Portlanders place bulk orders to get a wider variety of kosher meat; other niche kosher products can be ordered online. “You do have to plan ahead sometimes,” says Eleanor. “But there’s never a recipe from a kosher cookbook that I can’t make.”

Another asset of a small community is that it’s not big enough to have cliques. “When there are only five girls in your class, everyone becomes your type.” On the flipside, if there’s a class of four or five kids and one moves away, it’s acutely felt.

“When I came back to Portland as an adult, I realized how privileged I had been growing up here. I took for granted how innocently kids are raised,” said Eleanor. “There’s no concept of clothing brands, of what’s in and what’s out. There’s none of that. What we have here is a little bit of magic.”