× Expand Rabbi Patrick Beaulier (right) holds a Kehillah event at Ardent Craft Ales. (Photo by Jay Paul)

With tattooed arms and a James Dean hair style, Patrick Beaulier doesn’t fit the conventional image of a rabbi.

But then, the congregation he leads is also unconventional. In July 2018, Beaulier started a Jewish community in Richmond called Kehillah that reaches out to worshipers who don’t want to sit in pews. Kehillah means “community” in Hebrew, and Beaulier emphasizes that it is not a synagogue.

“We don’t have a building fund; we don’t even want one,” says Beaulier, who previously served as the rabbi at Bonay Kodesh, a South of the James congregation that folded last year.

Kehillah has held events at various locations, including people’s homes. Attendance ranges from 15 to 20 for Shabbat dinners to about 60 for holidays.

“We had High Holiday services at Swift Creek [Reservoir] and Shabbat in coffee shops,” Beaulier says. “It’s all the things you remember from house parties; you hear stories and make friends.”

Beaulier’s wife, Stefanie Papps, plays a key role in hosting Friday-night dinners with lots of singing at their Fan District home and in the Family School (an opportunity for children and their parents to learn about Jewish values and culture) that they operate in Southminster Presbyterian Church in Chesterfield County.

“Different communities have different flavors,” Beaulier says. “If you need a mechitza [a separation between men and women, found in an orthodox synagogue], we’re not going to be the right synagogue. If you like to sit in a pew, or if you want to be in a Hebrew school with 60 other kids, we’re not right for you.” Kehillah was the only Jewish organization with a tent at the Virginia PrideFest in September. A Hanukkah party took place at The Tottering Teacup in Carytown.

Beaulier approaches Judaism with a zeal of discovery that matches his unconventional background. The 35-year-old Atlanta-born convert is a former lead singer for a punk band who developed a “Punk Torah” YouTube channel. He studied remotely with Rabbinical Seminary International, which he describes as a “transdenominational rabbinical seminary in the Neo-Hasidic tradition,” to achieve his ordination. He also runs an online learning service called Darshan (which, in Hebrew, means a lay spiritual leader) that offers weekly lessons to people converting to Judaism as well as those seeking Jewish education.

Brought up in a non-religious household, Beaulier says he was drawn to Judaism because he came to a profound belief in God.

“It gives a language, text and culture,” he says. “It gives the universal and the particular.”

What’s the best decision you made?

“[It] was to have the attitude that comes from the Hebrew phrase ‘Gam zu l’tovah,’ or ‘It’s all for good’ … which means anything that could happen we would learn from it.”

What’s something you’d do differently?

“I would have skipped doing Shabbat Cafe. It was a fun idea, but Shabbat is meant to be home-based, so moving it into our home is not only better, but resonates with people more.”