Jewish School Relocates to Milford

Editor's Note: the following press release on the relocation of a Jewish Sunday school was sent by the Jewish Family Workshop.

For more than a decade, the Rosenfeld Hebrew School located in the Community Center at Milford’s Temple Beth Shalom has sat vacant and unused. Now, The Jewish Family Workshop IV (JFW) and Temple Beth Shalom have signed an agreement to house the Workshop’s religious school at the Temple’s facilities on Pine Street, in downtown Milford, and both congregations are benefitting from the arrangement.

religious school provides an affordable Jewish education and preparation for Bar/Bat Mitzvah for grades K-7, with classes beginning on Sunday, Sept. 9, but the congregation never had a synagogue to call “home.”

“The Workshop membership and staff are excited with the new location.” said Jeff Krasner, incoming President of the Jewish Family Workshop. “As a cooperative, focused on educating children of Jewish and inter-faith families, Temple Beth Shalom and the associated Rosenfeld Community Center provide an excellent environment for our students, teachers and curriculum, while maintaining our pluralistic religious values.”

After more than 10 years using a public school in Ashland for their one day a week program, the JFW sees the move to Milford as a chance to have a more dedicated location and access to a traditional synagogue. Bruce Kallin, President of, believes his congregation recognizes their new tenants as a chance to attract younger families and rekindle a piece of their history that had faded in recent years.

“Temple Beth Shalom welcomes the Workshop. We see this partnership as an opportunity to reinvigorate religious education at our facility. Since the closure of our religious school several years ago, we’ve been looking for the right opportunity to serve our community, and the Workshop provides an excellent fit. We offer a religious community to Workshop members who wish to join the congregation as well as educate their children.”

Families are invited to be members of one organization or the other, or both, with discounted fees offered to those who desire membership in both the temple and the workshop.

On Sunday, Sept. 9, more than 50 students of the JFW will begin classes at Temple Beth Shalom. For some, it will be their first experience with Jewish education and culture, while others will be taking their final steps towards a Bar or Bat Mitzvah. But for all of the families in both congregations, it will be the beginning of something very new.