PHOTO:Families enjoy Congregation Kesser Israel's expanded playground area during an ice cream social held to mark it's opening Sunday, July 14. (Rockne Roll/The Jewish Review)

By ROCKNE ROLL
The Jewish Review
Congregation Kesser Israel’s facility has undergone significant changes in the last year – a new perimeter fence, a new gathering tent, and other upgrades. The latest is likely the most fun of all – a playground.
The Orthodox synagogue staged a grand opening ice cream social for their playground expansion Sunday, July 14, with families coming out in force to enjoy the new facilities. 
Even a glancing inspection of the new structure reveals that this is no ordinary playground. 
“It’s a little taste of Israel right in our backyard,” Kesser Israel President Charles Elder said.
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The new facility is the product of two years of work. It started with a conversation between Ayanne Groupp and Rabbi Yerachmiel Kalter, then of Maayan Torah, about a grant program for children’s educational initiatives. 
“My mom and I read through the description of the grant and immediately we thought about how insufficient the playground was,” Groupp recalled. 
Groupp’s mother, Elyse Groupp, is a scientist and experienced grant writer. They spoke with Steve Lebwohl of Wildwood Playgrounds, a member of Congregation Neveh Shalom, who has been building playgrounds for nearly five decades, including for many of Portland’s synagogues. 
“It wasn’t just ‘get the kids outside and then let them play on the monkey bars,’” Ayanne Groupp said. “Playgrounds have really huge community impacts.”
Simultaneously, Rabbi Chanan Spivak of the Portland Kollel helped Groupp connect with the state agency responsible for managing the grant. 
“At first, she said, ‘it’s not really for the construction,’” Groupp recalled of their conversation. “I said to her, ‘We have some safety issues. We have some accessibility features that we’d like to bring in. We’d like to make it more inclusive so that kids and community could really be out there.’”
That seemed to get the agency worker’s attention, and Groupp was encouraged to apply. Working with her mom, the proposal was submitted and approved. 
“We were able to use some for programming,” Rabbi Sholom Skolnik said, but the lion’s share went to the playground. 
“[Groupp] was the hero of the day, for sure,” Elder said. “She’s the one who put the whole thing together.”
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With the budget secured, Lebwohl took to the site as an artist to a canvas. The new playground covers approximately 3,000 square feet on the southern edge of Kesser Israel’s property but is quite narrow by playground standards. 
“So, we had budget restraints, site restraints, yet also trying to give the kids as many layers of fun and challenge and imagination as we could,” Lebwohl said.
At its easternmost end, the new spaces include a cushioned platform surrounding an accessible merry-go-round; the rotating surface is flush with the surrounding floor, and the shape of the structure leaves room for a wheelchair user to simply roll aboard and go for a spin. 
This area represents the Dead Sea, Lebwohl said. Moving westward, the existing play structure was retained, adding tree-shaped toppers to its support poles that are reminiscent of Israel’s forests; forests which Lebwohl spent his childhood stuffing loose change into JNF tzedakah boxes to support. Behind that, under a high canopy, is the main part of the new structure, which represents Jerusalem. 
This new structure, along with the Masada-themed climbing structure behind it and the Noah’s Ark-centered early childhood area behind it, were built by Psagot Playgrounds in Israel and designed by Lebwohl in collaboration with the Kesser Israel community. Custom made panels include maps of Israel, both ancient and modern, as well as the Seven Species and animals found in the Torah. The walls of the Jerusalem area are plastic, enclosing a central area reminiscent of a city square, but have been cast and painted to resemble the stone walls of the Old City. 
A staff member from Psagot Playgrounds came to aid the installation last month; the installer is part of the family that runs the company, which takes its name from the settlement in the West Bank where it is based, and had just days beforehand completed a four-month Israel Defense Forces deployment to Gaza.
“The builders of this were Arab and Jewish,” Lebwohl explained. “They have more Arab workers there, my understanding is, than Jewish. So that’s a nice thing to have the two groups working together.”
Psagot wasn’t just chosen for their Jewish connections. Lebwohl noted details in the joints between panels and the quality of materials in explaining that the structure is not just good-looking and educational, but exceptionally well made.
“It’ll be here for a long time,” he said.
And much as the builders can be proud of its quality, the design and arrangement, down to the placement of ladders on the Jerusalem structure’s southern side, more vertical than they otherwise might be to account for the limited space, are testaments to Lebwohl’s passion for playground design and his connection to the Jewish community.
“This was a labor of love,” he said.
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The new playground is not just reflective of the love that went into its construction, but the care that the synagogue has for those who will use it – whether climbing up the wall of Masada, reading a Hebrew phrase off one of the custom educational panels, or sitting on one of the numerous benches that surround the structures looking in on their children and the rest of Judaism’s next generation at play.
“We hold kids and families in such high regard, we need to support that,” Groupp said. “I think a playground with benches and covered areas does that. It puts our words into action that we value you, we want you to be here.”
“It’s important for families to have a sense of connection and for kids to have something to do,” Rabbi Skolnik added.
“If I was considering joining a shul and had young kids, this would definitely sway me, ” Elder said. “We have a lot of kids, and the parents come to daven (pray), and it’s a really fun and safe structure for them to play at.”