‘Eighty years is a remarkable milestone’: Richmond’s Temple Beth Hillel marks anniversary with songs and stories.
on October 26, 2026
Temple Beth Hillel celebrated its 80th anniversary Saturday in Richmond, bringing together current and former congregants for a shared meal, storytelling and live music.
As former congregants reunited, Maggie Jacobs, who has been a member since 2001, spent the evening welcoming congregants at the door with hugs before moving from one table to another, greeting familiar faces.
“Eighty years is a remarkable milestone for this congregation. When you look back at all the people who came before us, the families who built this community and the traditions they passed down, you realize how much it means to keep it going,” Jacobs said.
“I hope the younger generation will continue to find a home here, learn our history and carry these traditions forward.”
As the live band played, members joined hands in a circle, dancing and singing. The gathering brought generations of the Richmond Jewish community together to celebrate a community whose history is rooted in migration, faith and the search for belonging.
“It’s the birthday of our community. We’re celebrating the existence of our community. We’re celebrating that it’s been 80 years, and we’re hoping for a lot more years,” said Anna Stein, the congregation’s co-president.
The reform congregation has about 75 families. To preserve the memories of its founders and longtime congregants, members collected oral histories, written accounts, photographs and videos which were presented at the celebration.
Stein said it was an opportunity to reflect on the people, experiences and traditions that have sustained Temple Beth Hillel through generations.
Founded around 1945 as the Richmond Jewish Community Center, the congregation emerged when Jewish families, including Holocaust survivors, sought community in a city shaped by shipbuilding and wartime migration. Longtime member Larry Fox said friends gathered around their shared heritage, eventually building the congregation that became Temple Beth Hillel in 1959.
Fox, who joined as a child around 1983, said the founders wanted not only a place where they could worship, but also a place where they would connect with other Jewish families and share their culture.
“They started to seek out a community, trying to find what they might have had in other parts of their life and what their families might have had,” Fox said.
Preserving heritage
Over the decades, the congregation has grown into a home for people with different backgrounds and relationships to Judaism. Its members include families with roots in the area, immigrants and people seeking a connection to Jewish traditions.
Stein, who emigrated from Moscow in 1989, said Jewish identity in the former Soviet Union was often understood differently than it was in the United States.
“When we moved here, I think Judaism seemed more in a religious way in the United States than it was in the Soviet Union. Jewish people often associate their identity with religion rather than just an ethnic group,” she said.
Stein and her family joined Temple Beth Hillel in 2012 when she moved to Richmond. She said the congregation welcomed them immediately, giving her family a place to connect with other Jewish people and learn more about their heritage. All her children attended Hebrew school.
The temple preserves that heritage through its Sunday school, Shabbat services, Passover seders, Hanukkah celebrations and other observances. Younger children learn Hebrew letters, prayers and Jewish holidays, while older students explore Jewish history and prepare for bar and bat mitzvahs.
Fox teaches teenagers about Jewish experiences before, during and after the Holocaust, as well as earlier expulsions and migrations through Beth Hillel’s religious school.
“When the children come in, we work with them according to their age and what they need to learn. The younger ones begin with the Hebrew alphabet, words and prayers,” Fox said. “They learn about the holidays, the traditions and the basic principles of Jewish life. I always see them smiling in class.”
Fox said those lessons become meaningful when children experience the culture, rather than simply study it.
“One of the more universal thoughts is that repairing the world, we are caretakers of this earth, and we are responsible for each other and trying to make it better than where we found it,” Fox said.
A principle and Jewish concept known as tikkun olam, which means repairing or healing the world, also shapes the congregation’s community service, Fox said. Members participate in a December food drive with other congregations, helping provide food for families during the winter school break. Stein said it is usually a great opportunity for children to learn that Jewish values extend beyond the synagogue.
Fox said the congregation’s work depends largely on volunteers and members committed to keeping its traditions alive.
“We’re a community that cares,” Fox said. “And that’s both our strength and our weaknesses … we’re small but mighty.”
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