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Learning Jewish

Making the synagogue a home: Rethinking the mission of shuls.

Sue Fishkoff

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Oakland, Calif

T

here are more than
3,000 synagogues in
America. Why do some
of them struggle week after week
to make a minyan, while others
are bustling with energy, song
and laughter?
What is the magic that trans-
forms certain shuls into sacred
communities that embrace and
uplift their congregants, while
others just seem to be going
through the motions?
These are questions that
have been attracting commu-
nal attention since the 1990
National Jewish Population
Survey suggested that many Jews
in this country weren't joining
synagogues; and even when they
joined, they weren't going as
often as they used to.
Alienation from the synagogue
is a worrisome trend because the
shul, by default, has assumed a
greater role in American Jewish
life than ever before.
At a time when the home
is no longer the prime source
of Jewish education for many,
the synagogue has become the
central address for American
Jewry. Shepherding Jews through
their major life-cycle events, the
synagogue is now the chief insti-
tutional bulwark against assimi-
lation.
"Synagogues are
the place where
Jewish identity is
formed," says Dru
Greenwood, direc-
tor of synagogue
renewal for the UJA-Federation
of New York.
While 46 percent of American
Jews belong to synagogues,
according to the 2000-2001
National Jewish Population
Survey, only a quarter of them
show up for services even once a
month.

In order to reach more Jews
more deeply, the synagogue,
according to Jewish educator and
innovator Ron Wolfson, must
rethink its mission and become
"a sacred community" That is, a
place where Jews can find knowl-
edge, meaning and connection
with other Jews.

Homey Feeling
An array of programs aimed at
creating "sacred communities"
has cropped up since the early
1990s. The vast majority of them
are used in non-Orthodox syna-
gogues, although there are some
noteworthy exceptions.
Emanating from both national
organizations and individual
shuls, these programs run the
gamut in terms of style and
substance. Many of them aim to
cultivate a sense of comfort and
belonging among congregants
— a homey feeling that the
term "program" doesn't capture,
according to Rabbi Jonah Pesner
of Temple Israel, a Reform con-
gregation in Boston.
"Congregations are about
people, not programs," says
Pesner, who has drawn hundreds
of people into social-action work
at his synagogue through com-
munity-based organizing. He is
now trying to incorporate that
model throughout the Reform
movement.
"Synagogues are organized
backwards:' he adds. Instead of

"Congregations are about
people, not programs."

58

September 21 • 2006

asking people what they want,
"we start with programs and
wonder why people don't show
up.
Encouraged to cultivate what
one trailblazer calls "a culture
of experimentation:' rabbis and
other leaders have examined
virtually every mode of Jewish

expression, from worship to
Jewish scholarship to social
activism, in an effort to find
common ground with congre-
gants and enhance the synagogue
experience.
Likewise, they have
appealed to a wide range
of personal interests —
from fine arts to music to
theater.
"We feel the arts is a
wonderful doorway into
Judaism:' says Michael
Goldberg, program direc-
tor at the arts center of Temple
Emanuel in Beverly Hills, Calif.,
which sponsors lectures, cham-
ber concerts and play readings,
most with Jewish themes.
Temple Israel in Memphis has
reinvigorated itself by instituting
a rousing Friday-night "ruach,"
or spirit, service that employs a
house band, says the synagogue's
rabbi emeritus, Harry Danziger,
president of the Reform move-
ment's Central Conference of
American Rabbis.
The music isn't just a device to
lure young people, adds Danziger.
"Our drummer:' he says, "is a 70-
year-old dentist."

services altogether, preferring
instead to worship in other ways.
"I don't go to shul," says Beth
Barry, a member of the board of
the Brotherhood Synagogue in
downtown Manhattan. Rather

feel lost:' says Beth Israel pro-
gram director Bonnie Graff, who
is in charge of matching congre-
gants to an appropriate chavurah.
"If you get them into a chavurah
as soon as possible after they
join, it bonds
them. They
have people
to call and
say,`Let's go
to services
tonight."
Meanwhile,
more syna-
gogues have become "learning
congregations:' where Torah
study and the practical applica-
tion of Torah values are consid-
ered as integral a component of
Jewish involvement as meaning-
ful worship.
Adult learning programs in
particular have become more
popular.
Thirteen years ago,
Congregation Beth Am, a large
Reform synagogue in Los
Altos, Calif., just south of San
Francisco, created "Shabbaton,"
a three-hour Shabbat-afternoon
program for entire families.
Parents and children study a
topic together for an hour, break
apart into age-based groups for
a second hour of study and come
together again for the Havdalah
ceremony, marking the end of
Shabbat. Then, each family picks
a tzedakah, or charity, project for
the coming week.
Seventy families take part in
Shabbaton, says congregational
president Amy Asin, including
her own.
"We've built a community of
people who know each other,
who go out to dinner together:'
she says. "Shabbaton is about
coming to the congregation as
a family and being Jewish, as
opposed to learning about being
Jewish."

"If you get them into a chavurah
as s oon as possible after they join,
it b onds them."

Making Changes
Change-minded synagogues
have experimented with shorter
services, smaller services, neigh-
borhood-based services, earlier
Friday-night services for families
who want to eat Shabbat dinner
together, even services written by
the congregants themselves.
Beth Smith, a longtime mem-
ber of Conservative Congregation
Beth Shalom in Kansas City, Mo.,
decided the Shabbat service at
her shul was "boring:' so she
gathered a group of congregants
together to write a new one. The
result: a lay-led service, called
Tefillah 2000. It doesn't always
run as smoothly as the main ser-
vice in the sanctuary, but partici-
pants find it appealing precisely
because it is homegrown.
Some congregants do without

than attend services, Barry and
several other congregants serve
free Shabbat lunch to isolated
and homeless Jews as part of
Synaplex, a national syna-
gogue revitalization program
Brotherhood is participating in.
"This is what I do:' Barry says
on a recent Shabbat as she urges
an elderly lunch recipient to "take
some of the chicken home."
"It doesn't have to be one
size fits all:' Rabbi Jerome
Epstein, executive vice president
of the United Synagogue of
Conservative Judaism, says of
synagogue renewal efforts.
His shul, Beth El in New
Rochelle, N.Y., for example, has
a variety of Shabbat offerings,
including a learning service and
a chavurah, or small fellowship
of congregants with common
interests.
In fact, the chavurah, which
originated in the late 1960s as a
boutique-like alternative to insti-
tutional worship, has become
popular in many large congrega-
tions that are seeking to shed
their aura of impersonality and
encourage individuals to develop
bonds of friendship linking them
to the larger community.
Congregation Beth Israel, a
large Reform congregation in
San Diego, instituted its first
chavurah two decades ago. Today,
it has 28 chavurot linking people
by age, family status and per-
sonal interests.
"In a big congregation, people

❑

The first of an occasional series on

the synagogue.

