Congregation B’nai Midbar is Southern Arizona’s newest Jewish congregation — with a 25-year history.
The congregation began when three SaddleBrooke residents formed the Institute for Judaic Services and Studies in 2000. Its primary purpose was to hold monthly Shabbat services and High Holiday celebrations.
Over the years, the IJSS employed several rabbis, cantorial soloists, and musical accompanists, with Rabbi Sanford Seltzer leading the group the longest, including in 2006, from 2013-2020, and 2022-2024, when he retired at age 92. Along with leading services, he taught numerous classes, fulfilling the “and Studies” part of the IJSS name.
“I thought it was the right place for me, to be someone to whom they could look up to, and I could serve them in a meaningful way,” says Seltzer of the IJSS congregation.
“Rabbi Seltzer is so scholarly and wise, and he has such charisma,” says B’nai Midbar Board President Joy Erickson, who moved to SaddleBrooke three years ago.
As a SaddleBrooke club, the IJSS was limited to residents of SaddleBrooke One and Two, retirement communities north of Oro Valley.
It “bothered me as a Jew” to refuse non-residents, says Esta Goldstein, who chaired the IJSS in 2023. Also frustrated by difficulties reserving meeting rooms at SaddleBrooke, she initiated the transition from a club to an independent congregation.
B’nai Midbar now holds services at Santa Catalina Catholic Church. Goldstein found the space after attending a meeting there and asking the priest, Father Huy Vu, if the congregation could rent a room one Friday night each month.
“He said, ‘We can do that, but you don’t pay us anything,’” she recalls.
The rent-free space isn’t about charity, it is about putting into practice the commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself,” which is second only to “love your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind,” Father Vu says, citing Matthew 22:34-40.
It is about “recognizing our shared humanity and our roots in a similar spiritual heritage,” he adds. “To open up our doors, my hope is that we can build bridges of friendship and express the spirit of welcoming in a world that increasingly is in need of the spirit of unity. By cultivating the spirit of genuine hospitality, I think Catholics and Jews can be a light in the world.”
B’nai Midbar began using the community room at the church in September 2024.
“It all came together with such love and such ease,” says Goldstein.
“What started as a shared physical space has become a meaningful experience for both of us, an opportunity to get to know one another,” Father Vu says.
In lieu of rent, Erickson says, B’nai Midbar donates to the church.
Erickson suggested the congregation be named B’nai Midbar, “People of the Desert,” and rewrote the congregation’s bylaws. She notes that a precursor to the IJSS, the Jewish Friendship Group, is still active, but its gatherings are purely social and limited to SaddleBrooke residents.
B’nai Midbar aims to attract new Jewish SaddleBrooke residents, some of whom are closer to the age 55 threshold, she says, noting that the congregation’s current demographic skews “much older than that,” along with members from farther afield.
Before he retired, Seltzer helped a rabbinic search committee identify his successor, Rabbi Daniel Price, who previously served as a rabbi-in-residence at Tucson’s Kol Ami Synagogue.
“He interviewed and we all said, ‘Yes, yes, yes,’” Goldstein recalls.
“I really enjoy my work with the congregation at B’nai Midbar,” says Price, who notes that at 67, B’nai Midbar’s monthly Shabbat schedule is perfect for him.
Price was a rabbi, educator, and song leader in Connecticut for almost two decades. He moved to Tucson in 2018 after discovering the city’s charms while training for bicycle races.
The rabbi also gigs as a musician with a local classic rock band, Catalina Cruisers, which plays mostly private parties. Before his rabbinic career, he was a television producer and director in New York for 21 years.
Price serves as the controller of the Academy for Jewish Religion, a pluralistic New York-based rabbinical school, and travels to the East Coast every six to eight weeks.
Like Erickson and Goldstein, he sees holding services at the church, located on the border between Oro Valley and Catalina, as an opportunity for B’nai Midbar to grow.
“I have many friends in the northwest, and I know that the northwest has been underserved Judaically,” he says, explaining that B’nai Midbar provides another option along with Chabad of Oro Valley and Congregation Beit Simcha.
Leslie Stellman and his wife, Judy, moved to the area from Baltimore in 2022 and now live in Oro Valley. Intrigued by an article about B’nai Midbar in a local newspaper, they attended a service, “and a bunch of good things happened,” Stellman says. “We thought the rabbi was terrific. He’s very creative, he plays the guitar, he’s very spiritual.”
After the service, they talked to other members and “really enjoyed the people, liked the leadership,” says Stellman, who served on synagogue boards in Baltimore. “Joy Erickson is wonderful; she’s a terrific president. Esta Goldstein, the former president, is terrific. They welcomed us within five minutes. We felt like we’d been members forever.”
Price wants to continue expanding the congregation’s Jewish knowledge. Likening Judaism to Shakespeare or art, he says, “If you get the right docent, the more you know, the more interesting it gets. The more you can learn, the more it becomes compelling.”
B’nai Midbar has robust attendance, with 60-plus people each Shabbat.
“It’s not that they just come and sit. They sing, they’re involved,” Price says.
He adds that the congregation plans events for those who may not attend services or Torah study, such as a Tu B’Shevat Seder, speakers, and field trips.
Congregations Mingle at Interfaith Community Seder
One such event is a Passover seder held at the church on April 13, with members of both congregations attending.
“To me, it’s what Passover’s all about. You invite strangers. You invite someone to share this with you and tell the story because it’s so universal,” Erickson said, speaking in advance of the event.
This is the first seder Santa Catalina has hosted since he arrived in 2022, Father Vu says, but he attended a seder in 2012 as a student.
“The symbolism and the history, and the retelling the story of liberation, there’s a lot of emphasis placed on the idea of hope, and that’s resonating with us, for me and for Catholics as a whole,” he said in February, as his congregation prepared for the season of Lent.
For Santa Catalina congregants, the seder will be an opportunity to participate “in the tradition that Jesus himself participated,” Father Vu says, noting that much of Christianity is rooted in Judaism.
“I also appreciate how the seder engages all the senses” and encourages meaningful conversations, he says, adding that for the times we are living in, “interfaith understanding isn’t just a nice idea – it’s a necessity.”
For the joint seder, Price selected The Promise Haggadah, which he’d first encountered at a 2005 Jewish education convention and adopted for his family celebrations. He was delighted to learn that a Tucsonan, Nanci Freedberg, wrote the Haggadah.
Some 27 Santa Catalina parishioners were sprinkled among the 128 seder guests at 15 tables, making cross-congregational chats easy. Eight church members participated as volunteers for set-up, serving, and clean-up, along with volunteers from B’nai Midbar.
“So many people volunteered and worked so hard together. That was probably one of the best outcomes,” Erickson says.
Price, who led the seder, referenced his recent sermon on the dangers of creating an “us” and “them” dynamic. He amplified the evening’s inclusivity by having guests from both congregations take turns reading a paragraph or two from the Haggadah, just as many families do.
Some of the Catholic guests had been to seders before. Chris Kvidera, who attended the B’nai Midbar seder with her husband, Mark, had been a guest at a community seder in Minneapolis years ago as part of her graduate school training in social work, where she realized the rituals felt familiar because taking communion at Sunday Mass, also known as the Lord’s Supper, has its roots in the Passover meal Jesus shared with his disciples.
Father Vu offered reflections on the readings and rituals throughout the seder.
“In both our traditions, food is never just food. It is memory; it is stories, and shared stories and memories always bring hope,” he said.
After the reading of the Four Questions, Father Vu said asking questions is “not a sign of doubt but of freedom,” adding that both Catholics and Jews have long traditions of wrestling with faith.
Leslie Gordon, a B’nai Midbar member who lives in SaddleBrooke Ranch, said she is fond of interfaith programs, having been a spiritual seeker for many years before returning to Judaism.
Gordon particularly appreciates interfaith approaches to social justice issues. Toward the end of the seder, as Father Vu spoke of how the Jewish and Christian traditions call on us to be “people of justice, but also people of tenderness and compassion,” she murmured a fervent, “Yes!”
The seder ended with guests replete with gefilte fish, wine, and matzah ball soup, chicken with potatoes and carrots, and both traditional macaroons and French macarons, plus many other unleavened sweets — and most of all, with fellowship.
