How beloved is Bucks County? William Penn so loved Bucks County that in 1682, he named it after Buckinghamshire, where he’d lived in England. William Levitt so loved Bucks County that in the 1950s he chose it as the site of his second “Levittown,” setting off a suburban boom. And the Jewish community so loves Bucks that in no time flat, Bucks County has become home to the third-largest Jewish population in the state of Pennsylvania.
“There’s a huge number of Jews living in Bucks County,” says Bucks County Kehillah co-coordinator Alan Sheinberg. Spanning from Yardley in the east to Doylestown in the west, New Hope in the north and Levittown in the south, Bucks is now home to over 41,000 Jews. Sixteen synagogues and organizations throughout the county serve Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructionist, and Reform congregations. “But a lot of people here are unaffiliated with synagogues, they don’t join,” Alan observes. “So the goal of our kehillah has always been to create events that the Jewish community will widely want to take advantage of.” That has included cultural events and programming like a film festival, a youth basketball league — and the kehillah’s signature biannual event that brings the Jewish community together, the Bucks County Jewish Festival.
On Sunday June 2nd — this weekend! — join in the free festival fun and get to know why Bucks is so beloved. There’ll be live music, food vendors, kids’ activities, gaga pits, wine tastings, a DJ, cotton candy, a bounce house, information about Jewish organizations, “You name it, it’s gonna be there!” says Alan. It’ll be held from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in Newtown, at Bucks County Community College’s Linksz Pavillion, rain or shine. For more information, contact buckscounty@jewishphilly.org. For more about the Bucks County kehillah, click here.
