Shoresh seeks to blend coffee, community and Jewish life in Greenfield
'This is the space to get people together'
Coffee shops have a culture. Few have a minyan. Shoresh, a Greenfield-based “well-caffeinated shtibl” wants to offer both.
Created by Rabbi Mark Asher Goodman and Frances Lasday, the new venture on the corner of Loretta Street and Murray Avenue aims to augment local Jewish life.
While larger “institutional structures of Judaism are really great for serving the masses, they often kind of miss certain niche people who don’t want that,” Goodman said. “Whether it’s newbies to Judaism, or folks who are reentering the tradition after having been disengaged for a really long time, it’s just really difficult to walk through those conventional doors.” Conversely, a coffee shop is “one of those third spaces in American society that’s really warm and welcoming and inviting, and has no pretense and no expectations upon the people who go to it.”
The idea of mixing java and Judaism has brewed in Goodman’s head for 25 years.
In rabbinical school, “I had a teacher who used to occasionally say that when he retired he wanted to move to the north shore of Maui and create a coffee shop and beit midrash,” Goodman said.
The message resonated but the class ended; years passed and Goodman, like many of his fellow future rabbis, went from conventional job to conventional job. Six months ago, as his contract at Congregation Beth Shalom was nearing an end and the congregation he served in Erie was winding down, Goodman revisited the coffee shop idea.
He came to a realization, he told the Chronicle. “I am 49 years-old, and either I get to do the thing that I dreamt of doing when I wanted to become a rabbi, now, after having learned the ropes and paid my dues to the community for the last 20 years, or never — effectively — because in another five or 10 years I don’t know that I’ll have the energy and the drive to take on this brand new project and try and see it all the way through.”
Joining Goodman at Shoresh — the Hebrew word for root — is Lasday, an educator and community organizer who helped create a monthly pop-up minyan at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill. Goodman said the two worked on a separate grant application years ago; and though the grant didn’t go through, Goodman realized he found something better: a partner in the coffee enterprise.
Lasday said that when Goodman asked her to join him, about six months ago, she was immediately “excited about the idea of a space that was flexible to hold lots of different community partners, and also to put on cool events.”
An added bonus, she continued, is “I’m a resident of Greenfield, and we don’t have a coffee shop here.”
Details regarding coffee suppliers, baked goods, classes, prayer services and other programs are yet to be determined. Hours, however, are set.
The coffee shop will operate Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
As for what a minyan looks like on Shabbat, “I think that as we are growing and developing, it will probably change over time,” Lasday said. “I’m a pluralist. I grew up in a pluralistic youth movement, and I think there’s just so many unique ways to be engaged in Jewish life and davening (prayer). People want different things out of davening, and also, I think this town is a ‘you belong to many shuls’ kind of town.”
How that plays out, she continued, is that someone may have an idea for how to lead a different type of minyan. “Shoresh could be a space that allows that to happen in a low-risk kind of way.”
The enterprise already has chairs, siddurim (prayer books) and a Torah — both the siddurim and Torah were donated by Brith Sholom, the Conservative synagogue in Erie where Goodman officiates. These items, Lasday said, ease the formation of new prayer communities.
“A lot of the struggles of independent minyanim are how do you have space and the materials that you need to do it in. I think Shoresh could be an opportunity just to be like, ‘OK, come, this is the space to get people together, and now we can have an independent minyan.’ It could happen once. It could happen once a month. It just depends on what people are excited about building.”
As enthusiasm for the project grows, a looming question for organizers and community members remains. Given Shoresh’s intention to serve baked goods, will the coffee shop be certified kosher by the Vaad Harabonim of Pittsburgh? Founded by Orthodox rabbis more than 50 years ago, the Vaad is led by volunteers, including Shaare Torah Congregation’s Rabbi Yitzi Genack.
According to Vaad representatives, the organization relies on halacha (Jewish law) to “strengthen and maintain the institutions of a Torah community.”
Lasday said she intends to speak with the Vaad about possibly attaining its certification. “We want to be open to the community. We just have to have conversations about that,” she said. “We’re trying to figure out what the scope of that will be.”
Having signed the lease two weeks ago, Shoresh is grinding toward its first cup. Goodman and Lasday are meeting with contractors, reviewing permitting details and finalizing class topics.
Beginning in August, Goodman will offer classes on the Talmud, Chassidut (Jewish spirituality and mysticism) and intermediate Hebrew.
Lasday, a self-described experiential educator, plans on teaching about the Mishkan (Tabernacle) and Sabbath-related prohibitions by enabling students to undertake crafts, including weaving and spinning, “that were based on those ritual prohibitions.”
Construction is scheduled to begin later this month. The goal is to have the coffee shop open by October or November, and a potential space for Saturday events completed by the start of 2027.
Between its classes and coffee, Shoresh aims to be a “warm, welcoming, melting pot space for anyone in the Jewish community to find both Jewish learning and community,” Goodman said.
Yet more than simply being a place to serve joe and Jewish knowledge, “I want people to feel excited to come with their ideas,” Lasday said. If someone has a topic they’d like to explore, and “they have a bunch of people who want to do it, we’d love to host them and be an open space in the community for people to make things happen.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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