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Currently, Reconstructionists count 20,000 member families. Increasingly, the movement's congre- gations are hiring rabbis and moving into their own buildings rather than meeting in people's homes or in bor- rowed spaces as chavurot, or participato- ry groups. "We are member-led," says Sandy Hansell, president of Congregation T'Chiyah in Royal Oak, one of four Reconstructionist congregations in southeast Michigan. "We have no rabbi. We take turns at our place," he says of the synagogue that holds services weekly for Shabbat and on major holidays. Hansell defines the Reconstructionist movement as "liberal Judaism coupled with a strong, traditional base. For instance, Saturday morning services include reading the Torah with all the traditional prayers said in Hebrew, but with a lot of upbeat singing," he says. Other Michigan-area Reconstuctionist congregations are in Detroit, East Lansing and Ann Arbor, where the membership is looking to bring in a Reconstructionist rabbinical student on a monthly basis, as is T'Chiyah. "We have in the past had a rabbinical student one weekend a month," says T'Chiyah member Harold Gurwitz. "The rabbinical college provides this as a service for their students as well as for member congregations." Rabbi Debrah Cohen, who was the Detroit area's only Reconstuctionist rabbi, was chaplain at the Jewish Association for Residential Care in Southfield as well as part-time rabbi for three-years at T'Chiyah. A graduate of the Reconstuctionist Rabbinical College, she left the Detroit area in the fall to live in India for several months. The movement's seminary, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in suburban Philadelphia, recently increased the size of its incoming rab- binic classes from 10 to 18, while adding a cantorial program and master's degree in Judaic studies. This month it completed construction of a new library and classrooms. The movement now offers its own complete set of prayer books, including a High Holiday machzor (prayer book used on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), published in 1999 and a Passover Haggadah (book of the seder service) released last spring. T'Chiyah uses that machzor and has used the movement's Shabbat prayer book for several years. "The unique and special prayer books are an example of what the movement has done to incorporate the Reconstructionist approach to Judaism," says Gurwitz, who joined Hansell and Benjamin Ben Beruch at the Nov. 2-5 convention. Ben Beruch represented T'Chiyah and the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Chavurah. "What struck me, being there, was how fast the Reconstructionist move- ment is growing," Hansell says. Having attended conventions over the last 10 years, Gurwitz found many new congre- gations represented since the last confer- ence. Other significant changes are on the horizon. The movement's new camp is scheduled to open in 2002 somewhere on the East Coast. Reconstructionist teens from around the country will gather in Florida in January to launch the movement's first youth group. "We are a very exciting, energetic group and we seem to be striking a responsible core," Hansell says. He is optimistic for the growth of both the movement and his synagogue. "We have a good, committed core of members in our congregation and are poised for growth," he says of T'Chiyah with its 39 member families. Why Reconstructionism? The first Reconstructionist synagogue, the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, was founded by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan in the early 1920s. Kaplan was the first to introduce the bat mitzvah and began counting women in a minyan (prayer quorum) in the late 1920s. Reconstructionism, which regards Jewish law as something to inform policy rather than to dictate it, was the first movement to ordain openly gay and lesbian Jews and to recognize patrilineal descent, the idea that the child of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother can be considered Jewish. Even as they become more institu- tionalized, Reconstructionist congrega- tions are doing it in a distinctive way, putting their own left-leaning marks on programs such as fund-raising and sum- mer camps. In a meeting at the biennial, before taking on such issues as what level of kashrut (kosher) to observe or the role of Hebrew, camp committee members talked about the need to welcome chil- dren from lesbian and multiracial Jewish families. As a growing number of congrega- tions are taking on major expenses, like for buildings and staff, the movement has responded with a series of work- shops on fund-raising. Called "The Torah of Money," the workshops urge congregations to explore traditional Jewish texts on money, while also encouraging them to try creative fund-raising approaches. Many congregants came to Reconstructionism because they were disenchanted with the synagogues they grew up with, finding them too focused on material trappings or giving too much clout — whether ubiquitous plaques or aliyot (blessings before the Torah) — to the wealthiest members. Reconstructionist congregations want all members, not just major donors, to feel a sense of ownership in the synagogue. "Our movement has a strong anti- institutional orientation," writes Mark Seal, the JRF's executive vice president, in a recent issue of the movement's newsletter. "There's a sense of, 'How can we even think about intensive fund-raising when one of the central motivating fac- tors that led to the creation of our com- munity was a rejection of the culture of fund-raising within the broader Jewish community?"' Reconstructionist congregations are taking a range of approaches, but most are making 100 percent participation, rather than total dollars raised, the major goal. Congregations nationally are trying innovative fund-raising techniques, such as anonymous capital campaigning and sliding-scale membership dues. They seek to avoid the hassles and capital campaigns that buildings require by opt- ing to continue renting or borrowing space from other institutions. T'Chiyah, which rented space for years in a church in Detroit's Greektown, meets in the Royal Oak Woman's Club on S. Pleasant. Members are largely from the Royal Oak, Huntington Woods and Ferndale areas. "I think we're finding our way to be an institution that will not forget its grassroots beginnings," says Linda Jum, a member of B'nai Keshet in Montclair, N.J., and a JRF board member, while adding: "The more mainstream we become, the better off for us. "I believe there are many Reconstructionists out there," she says. "They just haven't realized it." ❑ Jewish News StaffWriter Shelli Liebman Dorfman contributed to this story