String of Pearls is a congregation of 50 households in the Princeton
area whose members have been gathering together since 1991. From the
beginning it has been a proudly diverse and inclusive Jewish
congregation, welcoming young and old, singles and families, Jews by
birth and by choice, on-Jewish partners in interfaith couples, gay and
straight,the spiritually settled and the spiritually restless, in
short, all who are willing to commit to the integration of community,
worship, study, and acts of loving kindness (gemilut hasadim) and
repair of the world (tikkun olam). Our synagogue’s name, String of
Pearls, comes from one of the first songs the congregation learned to
sing together. The text of the Yiddish song, Schnirele Perele (“String
of Pearls”), implies that those who are “pearls”— bound together by a
common thread of joyous belief—will advance the coming of an age of
heaven on earth.
