Synagogue and Temple Cleaning in Brooklyn
Cleaning scheduled around the calendar the building actually runs on, with the boundaries around sacred objects stated up front.
A shul is a harder building to clean well than its square footage suggests. Attendance swings from a weekday minyan to a full house on Shabbat and several times that over the Yamim Noraim, the kitchen runs under kashrut rules that govern cleaning equipment as much as cooking equipment, and there are objects in the sanctuary that a cleaning crew should never touch. Greencap Cleaning is based on 63rd Street in Brooklyn, and this page is written for the gabbai, shul president or building committee member who wants a contractor that already understands the calendar and the boundaries rather than one who needs them explained every visit.
What's Include
Sanctuary and beit midrash
- Sanctuary floors and seating: Pew, bench and chair cleaning, aisle and floor care, and siddur and chumash shelf tidying and dusting.
- Bimah and reading table: We clean the platform, the steps, the reading table surface and the surrounding floor. The Torah scrolls, their mantles and the parochet are handled only by clergy or gabbaim, never by our crew.
- Aron Kodesh surround: The ark exterior, the steps and the immediate area are cleaned. The ark is not opened by cleaning staff under any circumstances, and that is written into the scope.
- Men’s and women’s sections: Both sections serviced to the same standard, including the ezrat nashim and any balcony, with mechitza panels wiped down and never relocated without direction from the shul.
- Beit midrash and shtiebel rooms: Tables, seforim shelves, floors and waste in the study rooms, which take heavier daily use than the main sanctuary in most buildings.
Social hall, kitchen and simchas
- Kiddush room and social hall turnover: Post-kiddush and post-event reset: tables, chairs, floors, waste and restrooms, timed so the room is ready for the next use rather than for the next scheduled visit.
- Kosher kitchen with separated tools: Dairy and meat areas are cleaned with separate, dedicated cloths, mop heads, buckets and equipment that do not cross between them. This mirrors the kashrut rule your kitchen already runs on, and it is the single most common thing a general contractor gets wrong.
- Simcha turnaround: Deep clean before and after weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, sheva brachot and community events, including floor refinishing in the hall when the schedule allows it.
- Coatrooms, lobbies and entryways: The areas that take the whole kehilla at once, serviced at a frequency matched to Shabbat and Yom Tov attendance rather than to weekday footfall.
School, offices and seasonal work
- Religious school and nursery classrooms: Cheder, Sunday school and nursery rooms cleaned and disinfected on a schedule matched to the school week, with high-touch surfaces prioritised in the youngest rooms.
- Offices and rabbi’s study: Cleaned to whatever privacy rule you set, with papers and seforim left undisturbed.
- Restrooms and supply restocking: Serviced and restocked to a par level, with capacity checked before high-attendance days rather than after them.
- Windows, glass and stained glass: Interior glass on a routine cycle. Stained glass and any historic glazing is cleaned only by hand with a method agreed in advance, or left alone.
- Pre-Yom Tov deep cleaning: The full-building clean before Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot, with turnaround service between services on the days themselves where you want it.
- Pre-Pesach physical cleaning: The deep clean that precedes Pesach: surfaces, cabinets, floors, seating and the removal of crumbs and food residue from accessible areas. See the section below for exactly where our work stops.
- Sukkah season support: Cleaning of the courtyard, patio or lot around the sukkah and the route to it, before and after the chag. Erecting or dismantling the sukkah itself is not a cleaning service.
- Carpet, upholstery and floor refinishing: Periodic extraction and hard floor refinishing scheduled into the quieter weeks of the year rather than into the busiest ones.
What We Do Not Touch, and Why That Matters More Than What We Do
Not one competitor page on this search result explains the boundary around sacred objects. They say things like ‘trained to handle delicate items with care to preserve their integrity’, which sounds reassuring and tells a shul president nothing. Here is the specific version.
Our crew does not touch the Torah scrolls, the mantles, the crowns, the yad, the parochet or anything inside the Aron Kodesh. The ark is not opened by cleaning staff. If something needs to be moved in order to clean underneath or behind it, we stop and ask, and a member of the shul moves it. This is not a limitation we apologise for, it is the correct arrangement, and putting it in the scope document means nobody has to have an awkward conversation later.
The same clarity applies to Pesach. We do the physical cleaning: surfaces, cabinets, seating, floors, and the removal of crumbs and food residue from the accessible parts of the building, which is real, heavy work and it is the part a cleaning contractor should be doing. We do not perform kashering. Kashering kitchen surfaces and equipment for Pesach is a religious procedure carried out under rabbinic supervision, and bedikat chametz, the search itself, belongs to the kehilla. A cleaning company that offers to make your kitchen kosher for Pesach is either misdescribing what it does or overstepping. We do the cleaning that comes before, and we say so.
Where practice varies, we ask rather than assume. Mechitza arrangement, whether an on-site mikvah exists and what access it permits, how the kitchen is divided, and who is authorised to move what all differ between Orthodox, Sephardic, Conservative and Reform congregations, and between buildings inside the same movement. We set those answers down at the walkthrough and the crew works to your building’s rules, not to a generic template.
Why Greencap Cleaning
Call (718) 687-4294 or request a walkthrough with Greencap Cleaning.
(718) 687 4294
How We Work
The walkthrough is done with a gabbai, the president or the building chair, because the questions that matter are not about square footage. Who may move what, where the dairy and meat lines run, which rooms the crew should not enter unaccompanied.
The schedule is set against the Jewish calendar: Shabbat, Yom Tov, the Yamim Noraim, Sukkot, Pesach and the school year, plus your simcha bookings. Frequencies follow the calendar rather than a flat weekly grid.
Sacred objects, the ark, the kitchen separation and anything specific to your minhag go into the scope document alongside the task list, so a new crew member on their first night has the same instructions as the supervisor.
Routine service through the week, with the heaviest pass timed to leave the building right for Shabbat, and the post-Shabbat or post-kiddush reset scheduled so the social hall is not sitting used until midweek.
Pre-Yom Tov deep cleans, between-service turnaround on high-attendance days, and pre and post simcha work are booked into the annual plan in advance, with the surge headcount already allocated.
The pre-Pesach physical clean is treated as its own project with its own crew size and its own deadline, and it finishes far enough ahead that kashering and bedikat chametz can happen on the kehilla's timetable, not ours.
Brooklyn Shul Buildings, and What They Actually Ask For
A large share of Brooklyn’s shuls do not occupy purpose-built houses of worship. They occupy converted rowhouses, ground-floor storefronts, basement levels, and buildings that grew a wing at a time as the kehilla grew. That produces some very particular cleaning problems: low basement ceilings with exposed pipe runs that collect dust, a kitchen fitted into a space that was never designed as one, staircases that are the only route between the sanctuary and the social hall, and a boiler room or storage area that has quietly become the overflow for everything.
It also produces intensity. A building serving a large kehilla can host three minyanim before nine in the morning, a full day of learning, a nursery, an evening shiur and a simcha on the same Sunday. Frequency, not deep cleaning technique, is what keeps that kind of building presentable, and a contract that prices two visits a week for a building running fourteen sessions a week is going to disappoint everyone.
The last local reality is scheduling around a winter Shabbat. When Shabbat comes in before four thirty in the afternoon, the Friday window narrows sharply, and the crew has to be finished and out well before candle lighting. We plan the winter schedule separately from the summer schedule for exactly this reason.
Who We Help
This page is written for shul presidents, gabbaim, building committees and administrators of synagogues, temples, batei midrash and Jewish community buildings in Brooklyn and across New York City. Churches and other houses of worship are covered on our religious facilities page.
Serving All Five Boroughs
We clean shuls and religious buildings across Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. Our base on 63rd Street puts Borough Park, Midwood, Flatbush, Bensonhurst and Williamsburg within a short run, which matters when a kiddush finishes late and the hall is needed the next morning.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Will your crew touch the Torah scrolls or open the Aron Kodesh?
No. Our crew does not touch the sifrei Torah, the mantles, the crowns, the yad or the parochet, and does not open the ark at any time. We clean the bimah platform, the reading table surface, the ark exterior, the steps and the surrounding floor. If something needs to be moved so we can clean behind or underneath it, we stop and a member of the shul moves it. This is written into the scope document rather than left to a crew member’s judgement at eleven at night.
Do you clean during Shabbat or Yom Tov?
No. No Greencap crew is on site during Shabbat or Yom Tov. We agree the access arrangement in advance, including who holds keys, how the alarm is handled, and when the motzaei Shabbat or post-Yom Tov reset happens. In winter, when Shabbat comes in early, we run a separate Friday schedule so the crew finishes and leaves well before candle lighting.
Can you clean a kosher kitchen without causing a problem?
Yes, by running separated equipment. The dairy and meat areas each get their own cloths, mop heads, buckets, brushes and machines, stored and transported separately, and they do not cross. This mirrors the rule your kitchen already runs on, and it is the specific thing a general cleaning contractor most often gets wrong. If your kitchen has a particular arrangement or your rav has given specific instructions, we set those down at the walkthrough and the crew works to them.
Do you do Pesach cleaning?
We do the physical cleaning that precedes Pesach: surfaces, cabinets, shelving, seating, floors, and the removal of crumbs and food residue from the accessible parts of the building. That is substantial work and it is what a cleaning contractor should be doing. We do not perform kashering, which is a religious procedure carried out under rabbinic supervision, and we are not involved in bedikat chametz. We schedule the physical clean to finish far enough ahead that your kashering and your bedikah happen on the kehilla’s timetable.
How do you handle the High Holidays?
As a surge, planned in advance. Attendance over Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur can run several times a normal Shabbat, which changes restroom capacity, waste volume and the state of the lobby and coatroom within a single service. We schedule a full pre-Yom Tov deep clean, and where you want it, turnaround crews between services on the days themselves. The headcount is allocated in the annual plan rather than arranged in Elul when everyone else is also calling.
We use the social hall for kiddush and for simchas. Can you turn it around quickly?
That is usually the core of the contract. A hall used for kiddush on Shabbat, a shiur during the week and a simcha on Sunday needs turnaround service rather than scheduled visits, so we build the contract around your bookings: a pre-event clean, a post-event reset, and floor refinishing scheduled into the gaps. For buildings where events are the main use, a day porter arrangement often costs less than repeated emergency call-outs.
Do you work with Sephardic, Conservative and Reform congregations as well as Orthodox shuls?
Yes. Practice varies between movements and between buildings inside the same movement: mechitza arrangement, kitchen separation, who is authorised to move what, and how the sanctuary is used during the week all differ. We do not assume. The walkthrough is where we ask, and the answers go into your scope document so the crew works to your building’s practice rather than a template.
How often does a shul actually need cleaning?
It depends far more on session count than on square footage. A building running three morning minyanim, a full day of learning, a nursery and an evening shiur is in use fourteen or more times a week, and needs daily or near-daily service to stay presentable, with a heavier pass before Shabbat. A smaller shul used chiefly on Shabbat and for a weekday minyan may work well on two or three visits a week plus event-driven work. We count sessions at the walkthrough, not just floor area, because that is what actually drives the frequency.
Get Started
Greencap Cleaning serves commercial and institutional clients across all five boroughs from a base in Brooklyn. Call (718) 687-4294 or request a walkthrough to talk about synagogue and temple cleaning. We will tell you what the job actually involves, including the parts that are not ours to do.
(718) 687 4294