Temple Beth El S O C

Amazing pre school. Our daughter has been through mommy and me to pre k. The education is top notch. We have made so many great friends both our daughter and our family. We have been so lucky year after year to have had the best teachers! The teachers instill so much confidence and positive reinforcement with the children. Our daughter looks forward to going to school everyday! Thank you TBE!

Can’t say enough good things about this temple. The members are so warm and welcoming. There as so many families and children and activities. We have two children and I have to say that the school is excellent! Our older daughter was in montessori before but this school is everything that we were looking for and more.

Have met several wonderful people through this Temple. Very happy with the quality of education at the Early Childhood Center as well.

There’s just something about this place. Maybe it’s the warmth of the Rabbis. Maybe it’s the strength of the community. Maybe it’s the location (GORGEOUS). No matter what it is I feel welcome and connected there and am sure anyone can find their place there as well.

New member and have felt very welcome.

I had considered attending here before since it’s the closest shul to my apartment that doesn’t put women behind a wall («orthodox» folks, please join the current century already). I hadn’t gone because the couple of times I checked their schedule the Friday night services were around 6 PM — too early for me. Recently I got in the mood to find a synagogue to attend regularly so I checked again and saw the service was at 7:30 — perfect.
First the building: beautiful — probably the loveliest I’ve seen in a while. It’s also HUGE — but that makes sense if they are (as their website claims) the largest congregation in Orange County. The interior seems designed to have a Jerusalem look (lots of beautiful stonework) and is quite striking. The sanctuary itself was also lovely and nicely sized… and almost empty: for such a large congregation not many showed up, but maybe the Saturday morning services are the rage here. I was also (from what I could tell) the only single person under the age of forty in attendance. Beth El is near Leisure World retirement home and they obviously get a lot of members from there. In and of itself I think that’s great, but this place was looking way too lopsided — I don’t know if it has become a «bingo parlor» schul but it gave off that vibe.
Services: the rabbi spoke well (nothing out of this world but perfectly suitable) and the cantor is an Israeli woman with a beautiful voice and skill. The rabbi did quite a bit of «and so that’s why we as Jews do things this way…» and «here’s why we say this prayer» type stuff — almost like he had an audience of kids and he was doing a tot shabbat. I didn’t really care for that, but maybe that’s their thing here.
Demeanor: So how does a stranger find out about this place if attending for the first time? Not by being greeted or welcomed by anyone there. No greeters at the doors and no one greeting or passing out programs at the entrance to the sanctuary: just a table sitting there with the programs in piles. I’m not someone who wants an in-​depth interview of The New Guy, but most places at least have someone in a name tag who visitors can identify as The Person Who Tells You Where The Restrooms Are.
Overall: The service was solid enough and the cantor did a great job so I won’t trash the place completely and I’ll assume that there are people for whom Beth El is a good home. It will definitely not be mine, though. For whatever reason I got a huge vibe of «not welcome.»