Community in Miniature

This past week reminded us just how much of our community’s power lives in purposefully curated micro-communities — the gatherings that fit around a single table or into a single living room.

Allow us to explain, in three images:

This Sunday morning, our home filled with Shalom Harlem families—toddlers spinning like dreidels, parents sharing brunch, little ones sprawled on pillows listening to a Hanukkah story. These families have been coming together for ten months now, weaving familiarity into friendship and building a sense of “us” that somehow keeps expanding to welcome new faces each month.

Moments later (literally), Chelsea Garbell—rabbi-in-the-making and beloved community member—gathered eleven women for the very first session of our new Women’s Learning Circle. Around a table laden with treats, they dug into text and into each other’s wisdom, paired off for deep one-on-one learning, slowly stitching trust and curiosity with every shared insight.

And then on Monday evening, as Erica led the final gathering of our three-part Resilience Circle, people arrived with desserts and even a bottle of prosecco (thanks Margie!) to toast what we’d built together: not only learning, but a table around which people felt known.

All of this—three different micro-communities in just twenty-four hours.

People often imagine “community” as the big moments—the crowded celebrations, the festival lights, the buzzy public gatherings (and yes, we’ll be doing plenty of those this Hanukkah!). But the real architecture of a community is quieter and sturdier. It’s built through circles small enough that people can actually see one another, remember one another, check in on one another. It’s built over time, not in a single night.

This is why our community grows one micro-community at a time. 

In the coming months, we’ll be introducing a few new circles. And right now, Dimitry is in the middle of interviews for the next cohort of the Harlem Service Corps. It’s not too late to apply or to nominate someone who’s ready for a meaningful, bridge-building year.

And finally—because small gatherings also fuel big moments—it’s still not too late to sign up to be a Hanukkah Across Harlem host and receive $150-500 to host your peeps for a celebration. If you’ve been thinking about it, we’d love to welcome you into this circle of light-spreaders.