"I don't see it growing," said [Sherman Plotkin], Temple Israel's co-president. "We lose people little by little, and very seldom do we get anybody back."

Temple Israel's membership peaked during the 1980s when a "real estate miniboom" drew scores of new residents to the region, [Jeff Plotkin] noted. Now, the local economy is "in decline again" and "we are holding on" as a "small and little fragmented community," he said.

[Rise Richardson] and her family seem typical of Temple Israel's members. The congregation attracts primarily educators, farmers, artists, physicians and retirees who are "interested in kind of going back to the land and living saner lives" and want to maintain a "connection" to the Jewish community, [F. James Levinson] said.