When Aimee Greenfield, a real estate agent in Sparta, N.C., posted in a Facebook group for Orthodox Jews last year with information about plots of land for sale in an undeveloped gated community in her town, she had two goals. 

The first was to convince enough Orthodox Jews to uproot their lives and move to a small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains in order to start a new, close-knit rural Jewish community there, which might eventually sustain a synagogue and a kosher supermarket — all in the hopes that Greenfield’s kids, who are religiously observant, would move there and live close to her. 

The second goal was downstream of the first, but still important to Greenfield, herself an observant Jew who has lived in Sparta for 13 years: get enough Jewish women in this town of fewer than 2,000 people near the Virginia border for Greenfield to be able to sustain a weekly mahjong game. “I’m not worried,” she said when speaking with Jewish Insider last Thursday, while braiding and decorating six challahs for Shabbat. “I’m going to accomplish both goals before I die.”

Her enthusiastic Facebook posts found their way early last year to Yudi Gross, a financial planner in Florida who, after reaching Greenfield on the phone, flew to North Carolina to meet her. Gross thought he might buy a plot of land to develop a vacation home for his family. Instead, he spotted a business opportunity, and a spiritual one. With other private investors, Gross bought the entire gated community, with plans to build 350 homes. He called the project Shefa Living, “shefa” being Hebrew for “abundance.” 

“If we were to build a Jewish Orthodox community from scratch, how can we do it differently, and how can we do it in a way that creates healthy environments for the children to learn and grow, and healthy environments for adults to continue to learn and grow?” Gross said in a recent interview with JI. 

He knows his pitch is somewhat unorthodox: Move to the mountains. In North Carolina. To a tiny town with no synagogue and few other Jews for miles. But what he’s pitching is a radical vision of what observant Judaism could look like if not bound to the geographical constraints that have kept Orthodox communities from rural living. 

“This is not just 25-30 people who want to have a nice place in the summer. This is a dream for so many people,” said Gross. “I hope this transforms the way Orthodox families can choose to live geographically.”

He chose Sparta out of what some in the Jewish community might deem bashert, a Yiddish word for “destiny” or “soul mate.” After seeing Greenfield’s post, he didn’t consider whether other areas might be better suited for a new Jewish community; he felt there was something magical about Sparta. 

Still, Gross, who founded a wealth management firm, knows recruiting people to the neighborhood is a heavy lift. The nearest cities, Winston-Salem and Greensboro, are over an hour away, and Charlotte is nearly two hours away. People who buy homes in Mountain View, as the neighborhood will be called, must also buy into the vision of building a tight-knit community from the ground up (literally — the homes won’t be ready for at least a year).  

Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Twerski, a rabbi from Monsey, N.Y., is on board to oversee religious matters in the community. Plans are underway to build a mikveh, a kosher supermarket, an Orthodox school system and a yeshiva — a second location of Yeshivas Lev Simcha, a religious school in Boca Raton, Fla. A synagogue has already been constructed. 

All has not gone perfectly to plan; a group of yeshiva students were set to move to Sparta this fall, but zoning issues delayed the first batch of residents from coming to Mountain View until September 2026. But local officials in Sparta are excited about the community, according to Gross, a contrast to the antisemitic resistance put up in some New Jersey municipalities where Orthodox populations have increased in recent years. 

“It’s almost unheard of, from my experience, to see such a community being so open-armed about Orthodox Jews moving in,” Gross said. “I remember going to town, people stopped us to say shalom.” Greenfield noted that Sparta is a conservative Bible Belt town: “They love Jewish people,” she said simply. 

Glossy marketing materials on Shefa Living’s website call it a “new Torah-centric community in the Blue Ridge Mountains.” A frequently asked questions section touts North Carolina’s low state income tax and property tax rates, an educational voucher program and a lower cost of living. 

Mountain View is described as a place “where Yiddishkeit, spacious living and nature are seamlessly intertwined for mountain living without compromise.” A brochure shows three-bedroom, 2,200-square-foot homes starting at $549,000, and five-bedroom, 4,200-square-foot homes starting at just over $1 million. 

Buyers have put down deposits on 60 homes, Gross said. Starting in September, they’ll choose their lots, and work with developers on selecting upgrades and finishes in the new homes. More than 150 people have visited North Carolina to tour the site. 

One of the first Mountain View homeowners is Blimy, a mother of four from South Florida who asked that only her first name be used to protect her family’s privacy. She and her husband decided to jump in at the beginning to help build the community because they were true believers in its mission — the slow pace of life in a quieter community with fresh air and proximity to hiking, rivers and more. 

“I always wanted to be a hermit in the mountains, but then you’re missing community. I love the idea of having quiet around you, being able to feel yourself and feel your inner alignment and feeling connection to Hashem, to spirituality from within,” Blimy told JI. 

Most of the visitors to Sparta have come from New York, Florida and California, according to Gross. The earliest buyers know that going first means they’ll be arriving next year to help build Mountain View, when some of the proposed amenities, like a fully stocked kosher supermarket, may not yet be open. It may require commuting back to their old communities for work, or seeking remote opportunities.

“I think that the people who are going to be drawn here first are the pioneer types, the ones who are not needing the support that other people might need right away. They’re interested in leadership,” said Blimy. “I’m looking forward to the kind of community that this will be at the outset, because I think it will be really special, and what it will evolve into.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged U.S. businesses — particularly the retail and hospitality sectors — and placed thousands of Americans at risk of being evicted. But Richard Rubin, CEO of real estate company Repvblik, sees an opportunity amid the economic uncertainty.

Rubin believes his company’s business model of “adaptive reuse” — buying up old hotels and retail and commercial spaces and converting them into affordable workforce housing — is well suited to the changing economic environment.

“There’s just so much that goes into a building that was previously vacant and turning it around that is just hugely beneficial if one does a good job,” Rubin told Jewish Insider, “within not only the town or city or village or enclave in which one’s operating, but also, creating communities and homes for folks is really a special thing to do.”

Repvblik has so far opened just one converted building — a former Days Inn in Branson, Missouri, now known as Plato’s Cave — but has about 10 projects in the works across the country, with a goal of expanding further and constructing 20,000 total apartments within the next five years. 

“Things are definitely changing as far as people’s perception of the profitability of doing naturally occurring affordable housing within the U.S.,” he said. “We have the expertise and fortunately now the capital resources to make a reasonable impression in the market and hopefully deliver on a national basis many thousands of affordable housing units.”

Rubin added that he believes the carnage COVID will inflict on the real estate market has thus far been vastly understated.

“I think there’s gonna be a lot of adaptive reuse coming down the pike. I think it’s going to become the flavor of the day,” he said. “I think it’s going to become one of the most common forms… it’s going to become its own asset class, just based on what’s occurring.”

A room in “Plato’s Cave” in Branson, MO. (Courtesy)

Repvblik’s apartments target a niche group that Rubin said is vastly underserved: the workers who make up between 60% and 120% of the area median income — too much to qualify for subsidized housing, but not enough to afford the high-end housing on which many developers focus.

Rubin’s company also has its eye on potentially expanding into transitional housing for homeless people who are able to afford to pay some rent.

The entrepreneur got his start in the adaptive reuse market in his home country of South Africa. His company pioneered the field in Johannesburg’s Central Business District, he said, buying up high-rise commercial office spaces and converting them into multi-family apartments.

Rubin was not initially successful. His real estate business grew out of what he joked was the “most unsuccessful advertising agency in the world.” He originally looked at vacant buildings as potential advertising opportunities, but began to realize the real estate potential.

“I started to look at the fact that there were a million people coming into the city and a million people leaving,” he said. “And I thought, well, there’s got to be an opportunity for housing here.”

Rubin emphasized that in addition to the potential financial opportunities, a spirit of philanthropy and sustainability runs through his work.

“I come from very humble financial beginnings,” he said. “I know what it’s like to have a situation where one’s home is not as secure as one would want from a financial perspective.”

“Everything I’ve ever done has always been some confluence of capitalism and… philanthropy,” Rubin continued. “I feel pretty good about reusing assets.”

While still in South Africa, Rubin expanded into a pan-African student housing business and worked on a slum relocation project. He ultimately moved to the U.S. in 2015 after traveling there a year earlier for a student housing conference.

“I just set up shop here and just thought, there’s a huge opportunity to do this. And you know it’s been a very long road,” he said. “It was a difficult start. But I think we’re building quite a lot of momentum now… I think there’s a huge contribution we could make here.”

Seth Pinksy, the president of New York City’s Economic Development Corporation is leaving his post at the agency to join Scott Rechler’s real estate investment firm, RXR Realty, according to Crain’s New York. Pinsky will stay at the agency until August when Kyle Kimball, an executive director at the agency, will take over. During his tenure heading the Economic Development Corp., Pinsky helped arrange several major development projects for the city, including a nearly $300 million deal in recent months to convert the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx into the country’s largest ice rink facility. Pinsky also helped arrange the city’s $100 million acquisition of land in Coney Island in 2011 and draft plans to restore the area back to its carnival-era roots. Pinsky also spearheaded the $2 billion deal to create a joint NYC Tech campus for the Israeli Technion and Cornell universities on Roosevelt Island.

Pinsky is involved in the New York Jewish community and was honored by the Bnai Zion Foundation last September. In addition, both of Pinsky’s parents are heavily involved in their Wellington, Florida, Jewish community. According to Pinsky’s New York Times wedding profile, his mother is the assistant principal of the Arthur I. Meyer Jewish Academy in West Palm Beach, Florida, and his father is the leader of Temple Beth Torah in Wellington.