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Lending Talents
YIOS earns grant for women’s
leadership program.
LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
D
uring its inaugural year, the Orthodox Union’s
Department of Women’s Initiative called for
synagogues to apply for a challenge grant of up
to $5,000 to fund new creative programs for women
and girls.
Dr. Adina Shmidman, founding director, reported
that 93 synagogues across the continent submitted
program ideas. The OU intended to
fund 10 programs, but, impressed by
the quality of the applications, they
committed to fund 16.
Young Israel of Southfield (YIOS)
was one of the winners for its “Your
Voice-Our Community” program.
When she read about the grant
challenging congregations to “create
Adina Morris
engaging and impactful programming
to facilitate spiritual involvement
for women of all ages,” Adina Morris
thought YIOS could meet that challenge. Morris, wife
of the congregation’s Rabbi Yechiel Morris, works as a
leadership and life coach at CRDL Coaching LLC; she
has professional skills relevant to program design.
Morris discussed the challenge with Ariella Shaffren
and Shirli Gotlib, sisterhood co-presidents, to develop
the specifics of their entry.
The three identified a substantial need of their syna-
gogue: integrating new members — especially women
— into leadership. “The Young Israel of Southfield has
undergone significant growth in the past decade; some
40 or 50 young families have joined,” Morris said.
Rapid growth creates opportunities and challenges.
A larger congregation benefits from a mindful process
to establish bonds across groups and age levels.
Some new members have talents they could devote
to the synagogue, but they also have busy lives, with
competing demands of profession and family. And
some may not offer unless invited, but established
leaders may not even know of talents that could be
offered. The synagogue would benefit from a way to
pull them in, to invite them to lead, but what is the
path?
“While we were working on that project, we discov-
ered that a fellow member of the congregation, Haviva
Greenbaum, is a professional grant-writer,” Shaffren
said.
Inviting Haviva Greenbaum into
the planning illustrates Shaffren’s
point: “We didn’t know that Haviva
was a professional grant-writer until
it came up in a different conversa-
tion.”
The women designed “Your Voice-
Our Community” with several inter-
locking goals.
Ariella Shaffren
“We want to invite talented people
into leadership,” Shaffren said. “We
want to build relationships across the generations.
The usual ‘age-basket segregation’ results in not even
knowing other congregants and not knowing what
they can do.”
On Nov. 3, the Shabbat of the Torah portion, Hayyei
Sarah (the Life of Sarah), Rabbi Morris will deliver a
sermon based on Sarah as a role model, focused on
encouraging communal support for women leading in
the shul and the broader Jewish community.
Kiddush after services will honor the women of
Young Israel of Southfield. At an afternoon meal, seu-
dah shelishit, for women, held at a private home, Adina
Morris will teach classical Jewish sources that inspire
women to seek leadership roles.
Women with children, careers and community work
might not often take time, in Morris’
words, “to devote to developing
themselves or to re-energize.” So, the
Sunday activities of “Your Voice-Our
Community” will provide an escape
from the usual places and responsi-
bilities. The full-day retreat at Soul
Space in West Bloomfield begins with
Terri Farber
a literal escape, an escape room activ-
ity.
Terri Farber, a motivational
speaker and leadership trainer from Farber/Schechter
Philanthropic Advisors in Birmingham, will lead activ-
ities to help women identify their own potential roles
as communal leaders.
Morris is especially excited to lead a session of
“mind-mapping” after lunch. In this directed activity,
small groups of participants freely contribute their
thoughts on a topic, while each thought gets recorded
and posted on a wall. The leader then reviews the
thoughts, systematically drawing connections between
notes and rearranging the notes until they form pat-
terns. Mind-mapping, thus “makes thoughts visible.”
Different teams of women — mixed at random
— will consider open-ended questions about what
inspires and motivates them.
This will lead into teams planning inspiring or moti-
vating projects for the synagogue. The team judged to
have the best idea will get seed money to put the idea
into practice.
After evaluating “Your Voice-Our Community,” the
YIOS women will enable the Orthodox Union to pub-
lish detailed instructions for replicating and improving
this program. When a congregation begins a similar
program, the women of the Young Israel have commit-
ted to serving as mentors. •
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July 12 • 2018
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