By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Like many other neighborhoods, Ravenna is mostly a white, middle-class, well-educated community. Its diversity may come more in the form of religion than race. The neighborhood has a growing population of Jews. Unlike Seward Park's Sephardic Jews, whose ancestors came from Spain and the Mediterranean, many North End Jews are Ashkenazi, with family histories extending back to Eastern Europe and Germany.

One of Ravenna's neighborhood synagogues is Congregation Beth Shalom, which is nearing completion on a $1.8 million expansion. Almost 30 percent of the synagogue's 400 members live in the Ravenna area, says Stan Zeitz, president of the congregation's board of directors.

Many members of the congregation prefer to live close enough to the synagogue so they can walk on the Sabbath, an important tradition for many Jews.

The synagogue, at 5031 University Way N.E., was created almost 30 years ago after Herzl-Ner Tamid Conservative Congregation moved from Seattle to Mercer Island, Zeitz says.

Over the years, the Seattle area's Jewish population has grown dramatically to more than 40,000, Zeitz says. "When I moved here in 1963, we had about six to 10 synagogues. Now we have more like 22 to 25. We like it here. It's a nice city," Zeitz says. "And Ravenna is a nice, stable area."

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