Washington DC

There are two AVODAH batim in Washington, D.C.  One is in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Northwest Washington,off 16th St and three miles north of the White House. Although geographically close to downtown, the area is much further away culturally. Until recently Columbia Heights was a primarily low– and middle–income African-American neighborhood. However, beginning in the 1980s, a large influx of Central American immigrants began to move in and transform the area. The AVODAH Corp members live near the heart of the Latino community and are surrounded by pockets of other immigrant groups—Ethiopian, Vietnamese, and others. Now the area is facing yet another influx, this time from affluent homebuyers, commercial development, and gentrification. Though still largely a working-class neighborhood, more houses have been spiffed up by and for new buyers, new luxury condos are going up, and the neighborhood is becoming as economically diverse as it is ethnically.

The Columbia Heights bayit is within a 30-40 minute walk of a Conservative synagogue and a few minyanim, including two traditional, egalitarian minyanim that are very popular with twenty-somethings in town. Within a short bus ride or 45 minute walk are the DC Jewish Community Center, DC’s small 14th St. theater district, and the popular Dupont Circle.  The popular Adams Morgan area is about a 20 minute walk from the house. The neighborhood immediately surrounding the houses offers a supermarket, a number of smaller groceries and bakeries, a pharmacy, banks, and a number of restaurants. Along with gentrification has come commercial development and the neighborhood now has many major chain stores, like Target, Bed Bath and Beyond and Best Buy.

The second AVODAH bayit is in DC’s Park View neighborhood. The name of the neighborhood comes from its views east into the campus of Old Soldiers' Home. At the time Park View was developed, and well into the 1960s, the Home's grounds were open to the public as a park. Those grounds were a designed urban landscape, including pedestrian paths and ponds, modeled along the principles of New York's Central Park. Indeed, when the Home's campus was developed into a public park in the later 1880s, it often was compared to Central Park.

A solidly residential community, Park View is a quiet corner of the city, one in which the recent trend toward gentrification has only recently found a foothold. Its one commercial corridor, Georgia Avenue, has a generous share liquor stores, but the area has been declared a FOCUS improvement zone by the Mayor. The recent addition of a sit-down restaurant, Temperance Hall, and a yoga studio, Yogahouse, have reignited interest in the neighborhood. The Lamont Street Lofts, at Lamont Street and Georgia Avenue, offers probably the only genuine loft-space dwellings in the city. Further, a new charter school has been built at Georgia Avenue and Otis Place.

The neighborhood itself is well maintained and pleasantly suburban, populated mostly by middle-class African American families. Park View Elementary School, a major community anchor, is one of the most consistent and highly regarded public elementary schools in Washington. 

View a listing of Washington, DC placement organizations.