About

Our clergy and staff are dedicated to giving you a meaningful synagogue experience.

Rabbi Michael Strassfeld

Cantor Lisa Arbisser

Gidon Isaacs, Education Director

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The SAJ is located at 15 West 86th Street, just west of Central Park West, on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

The synagogue building was our first permanent home. Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan, our founder, opened it in 1926, four years after our congregation was founded.

Our sanctuary — a beautiful contemplative space — is the location for all of our Shabbat and holiday services. It was extensively renovated, thanks to a highly successful capital campaign, and reopened to the congregation on Rosh Hashanah 2004.  Read more»

The SAJ is located at:
15 West 86th Street
New York, NY 10024
Phone: 212-724-7000

We are easy to reach from Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Westchester and Northern New Jersey.

By Subway: Take the B or C train (weekdays) or C train (weekends) to 86th Street and Central Park West, or the 1 or 9 train to 86th Street and Broadway.

By Buss: Take the M10 bus (Central Park West) or the M86 crosstown to 86th Street and Central Park West.  Read more»

The Reconstructionist movement is the result of Kaplan’s lifelong effort to create a Judaism that could bring the culture, community, and spirituality of the Jewish people forward and make it meaningful in a world of science, reason, and cultural diversity.  Read more»

The SAJ was founded in 1922 by Dr. Mordecai M. Kaplan with a single — and singular — purpose: to reconcile traditional Judaism and modern life.

Kaplan, a noted theologian, served for six decades on the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. A revolutionary leader and thinker, Kaplan evolved a viewpoint that ultimately became the basis for the Reconstructionist movement. Under Kaplan, the SAJ became the leading synagogue of that movement. Many date the establishment of Reconstructionism from the publication of Kaplan’s 1945 prayerbook — developed and first used at the SAJ.  Read more»

From the day of our founding, the SAJ has been at the forefront of one of the great questions of our time: Is it possible to lead a meaningful life in the modern world?  Read more»