How welcoming the stranger and saving a life will really make the world a better place: A Rabbi’s call to action by Rabbi Rachel Ain As a rabbi at a Conservative synagogue one of the challenges I face is in figuring out how to welcome people who are unaffiliated and lacking in Jewish background, knowledge, and communal connection. As a congregation we consider which barriers we should lower in order to attract people to our community and we think about the factors that will make our community a place that a novice would want to see as their spiritual address. … [Read more...]
40 Plus and Screwed: More on Less Young Adult Engagement
Posted on June 19, 2013 Written by 13 Comments
Building a sustainable community can’t be just about paying for buses full of young people in hopes they will make Jewish babies. by Michal Kohane You might ascribe the following comments to my advanced age, shifting moods, raging hormones. I admit. I am not a “young adult” by any current official definition of the term. At the same time, 4 of my 6 children are still in that age bracket, so I do have a vested interest in their Jewish connectedness, and anything we do in that realm of “young adult engagement”. I started writing this piece a while back but doubting its political correctness, (yes, and my moods), left it. Then last week, I sat at yet another meeting and someone, proudly sharing all the young adult activities their organization features in a big, respectful Jewish … [Read more...]
Giving USA Reports Slight Increase in American Philanthropy
Posted on June 18, 2013 Written by Leave a Comment
by Robert I. Evans and Avrum D. Lapin Giving USA: The Annual Report on Philanthropy, issued today by the Giving USA Foundation and its research partner, Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, is considered the most definitive and prominent resource for information about directions and trends in charitable giving in the United States. The Report reviews and discusses giving by all types of donors, and while it does not focus on or feature any special groups or geographical parts of the U.S., we like to look at the Annual Report with a Jewish perspective and apply its relevant findings to our work with Jewish nonprofits across America and around the world. GivingUSA has determined that overall giving increased slightly from 2011 to 2012; that Americans donated an estimated … [Read more...]
From Purchase to Partnership: Removing the Price-Tag from Synagogue Membership
Posted on June 18, 2013 Written by 6 Comments
by Michael Wasserman In the American synagogue, dissatisfaction with the standard dues-for-membership financial model is growing more widespread. Dan Judson (“Scrapping Synagogue Dues: A Case Study,” eJewishPhilanthropy, Jan. 12, 2012) has written about one synagogue in the Boston area that eliminated membership dues. More recently, Beth Cousens and Adina Frydman (“Connected Congregations: Moving from Courageous Conversations to Courageous Actions,” eJewishPhilanthropy, June 10, 2013) have written about the New York Federation’s efforts to help local synagogues develop alternatives to the dues-for-membership model. As a contribution to that conversation, we offer the example of our synagogue, The New Shul in Scottsdale Arizona. The New Shul is an independent (traditional-egalitarian) … [Read more...]
Leadership & Change in the Land of The Lost
Posted on June 13, 2013 Written by 7 Comments
The agenda for leadership transition in the Jewish community simply cannot be created and dictated entirely by the existing and departing leadership. by Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer Readers of eJewish Philanthropy will readily recognize the phrase “leadership crisis” as a recurrent feature of conversation - or perhaps we should say, panic - in Jewish organizational life. The impending, and in some cases already occurring, demise of the stranglehold on executive leadership by the existing pool of longstanding executives in major (or “mainstream”) Jewish organizations is cause for great consternation and concern and has resulted in a steady stream of editorials, op-eds, and now most recently, a comprehensive analysis of the problem written by Barry Rosenberg and commissioned by JPPI. Sadly, but … [Read more...]
Connected Congregations: Moving from Courageous Conversations to Courageous Actions
Posted on June 10, 2013 Written by Leave a Comment
The deeper we delved and the further we peeled back the layers, the more we began to understand that the issues facing synagogues at this time were more complex than financial sustainability – including, critically, the downward trend in congregational affiliation and membership. by Dr. Beth Cousens and Cantor Adina Frydman Questions about synagogue dues have been in the Jewish press for several years now. Perhaps this came to light with the start of the economic downturn in 2008, when discretionary dollars began to decrease, discretionary spending began to decrease, and synagogue membership was revealed to be discretionary to many. Perhaps this is because synagogue membership in its current form is counter to the “non-joiner” trend. Rabbi Dan Judson, author of "Scrapping Synagogue Dues" … [Read more...]
