The Plan to Revive Boston's Vilna Shul

On a Sunday morning in late November, around 250 people fill the dark brown wooden pews of the Vilna Shul in Boston. A synagogue built by Jewish immigrants from Lithuania in 1919 on Phillips Street in the central Beacon Hill neighborhood, it closed in 1985, and then reopened as a cultural center in the early 1990s. With its wooden floors, narrow ceilings on the first floor, and partly recovered murals and stained-glass windows in the sanctuary on the second floor, the building feels old, and full of history. But today, there’s a touch of summer camp.

Every person is wearing a white nametag. Some carry large white signs with surnames on them: Flink, Goldstein, White. Marilyn Okonow, a slight woman with dark curls tinged with grey, is standing on the central bimah, and calls out the family names on the nametags. Members of the audience cheer.

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