Rural Judaism

Stuart Matlins is founder and head of Jewish Lights Publishing in Woodstock, Vermont. He's been called the Ben and Jerry's of Jewish Publishing. Jewish Lights publishes books that cannot be pigeonholed as "Judaica", but, in Stuart's words, "books that reflect the Jewish wisdom and tradition of people of all faiths, all backgrounds." He started the company not long after he moved the small, rural Vermont town and found that he struggled to define what being Jewish meant minus all the trappings of urban Jewish culture. Stuart and his wife founded the Jewish community in Woodstock in 1988 and built a synagogue in 2000.