The Magic of a Walking Tour

Every time I lead a Jewish Harlem walking tour, something almost magical happens—though maybe it isn’t magic at all.

Without fail, I run into people I know. Not just one person, usually a few: a partner in our work who waves hello, a neighbor who stops to listen in, someone I used to teach with from my decade as a music educator, or a colleague from a community-building project.

At first, it feels like synchronicity—like the city is conspiring to surprise us. But when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. After 16 years of living in Harlem and building literally thousands of connections, of course walking down the street means waving hello to neighbors. That’s what it looks like when you’ve been weaving threads into a neighborhood’s fabric for this long.

And this past Sunday, it happened again. In the middle of our tour in Central Harlem, right in front of the old Institutional Synagogue on 116th, we ran into a member of our community. I waved him over, and he joined us for a few minutes, sharing his own experiences of Jewish life here.

It was a reminder that the story of Harlem—its Jewish past, its present, and its future—isn’t something abstract. It’s carried in the lives of real people, our neighbors, our friends.

That’s what we’re trying to create together: a neighborhood that feels like a small village, even among the 24,000 people living in Jewish households here. A place where the story is alive, where you walk down the street and can’t help but run into someone who’s part of it.