• Home
  • About
    • About
    • Policies
  • Submissions
    • Op-eds
    • News / Announcements
  • Contact
  • Donate
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

eJewish Philanthropy

Your Jewish Philanthropy Resource

  • News Bits
  • Jewish Education
  • Readers Forum
  • Research
  • Show Search
Hide Search
You are here: Home / Marketing / Please Welcome Me at Services Thursday Morning

Please Welcome Me at Services Thursday Morning

September 7, 2010 By Gail Hyman

Please Welcome Me at Services Thursday Morning …. A Plea For All the New Faces at Your Synagogue

As a communicator, I like to observe how strangers successfully find their way into a social situation or, sadly fail to make an initial connection that held the potential promise for real friendship. As we approach the High Holidays, I am reminded of how great an opportunity we have during the holidays to meet the stranger and offer ourselves as connectors and introducers to our Jewish community.

This week we will come together to pray, to welcome the new year, remember all that has transpired over the past one and hopefully spend a few moments greeting one and other with love, kindness and a hearty L’Shana Tova.

If you are a synagogue leader, or simply an active and engaged member of your Jewish community, I urge you to do something more this year and make it your task to “officially” welcome the strangers among you. Yes, there will be new faces among you who you are likely to dismiss but these are the people who could become your next synagogue young leadership outreach chair, your greatest building committee member or simply a source of insight into what your synagogue needs to become to attract more new faces that will fill more seats next Rosh Hashanah. Ignoring them is easy to do but a profound mistake.

Thursday is an opportunity for every synagogue leader and active member to become self-appointed, official greeters and engagers of the strangers among you. Extract yourselves from the warm embrace of your long-standing synagogue friends and go introduce yourself to that lonely lost newcomer. Find out who they are, what brought them to your synagogue, what they thought of the experience and ask what you can do to continue the conversation. If it makes it easier for you, wear badges that identify you as a synagogue leader so that newcomers can easily introduce themselves to you and can readily locate you as a friendly face amid a sea of strangers. Hand out special cards of greeting for newcomers which include email and phone numbers encouraging them to contact someone to learn more about your synagogue and its broader network of Jewish services.

If we truly want to be a welcoming Jewish community we each need to play a part in making it so. Good marketing (and good Jewish community building) is as basic as being a generous and welcoming host … to actively create the experiences that invite the cautious newcomer inside and allows them to feel the goodness of our community.

Please extend your hands and your hearts this Thursday. Step up and welcome the newcomer. Provide them an easy way to access your community after the holidays – whether it is with a list of resources, your personal business card, or a follow up call to see how you might provide additional help in navigating the Jewish community’s terrain. Nothing feels better and has a more lasting impression than your individual and genuine efforts. Make it your job this week and have a sweet and enriching new year.

L’ Shana Tova.

Gail Hyman is a marketing and communications professional who currently focuses her practice, Gail Hyman Consulting, on assisting Jewish nonprofit organizations increase their ranks of supporters and better leverage their communications in the Web 2.0 environment. Gail is a regular contributor to eJewish Philanthropy.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Marketing, The Blog Tagged With: worship

Click here to Email This Post Email This Post to friends or colleagues!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. yoram samets says

    September 7, 2010 at 6:24 pm

    This message which not only holds for Thursday and FRIDAY, and Shabbat, is not a marketing message. This is the essence of the word Shalom for Jews. The essence of who we are as a people, welcoming all of us under G-D’s grace.

    Today is only Tuesday, let’s get this message out to our membership now.

Primary Sidebar

Join The Conversation

What's the best way to follow important issues affecting the Jewish philanthropic world? Our Daily Update keeps you on top of the latest news, trends and opinions shaping the landscape, providing an invaluable source for inspiration and learning.
Sign Up Now
For Email Marketing you can trust.

Continue The Conversation

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Recent Comments

  • Bruce Powell on An Invitation To Transparency: Reflections on an Open Salary Spreadsheet
  • Sara Rigler on Announcement: Catherine Reed named CEO of American Friends of Magen David Adom
  • Donna Burkat on The Blessings in 2020’s Losses
  • swindmueller on Where Do We Go From Here?
    Reflections On 2021
    A Jewish Response to These Uncertain Times
  • Alan Henkin on Where Do We Go From Here?
    Reflections On 2021
    A Jewish Response to These Uncertain Times

Most Read Recent Posts

  • What Title for Henrietta Szold?
  • Jewish Agency Accuses Evangelical Contractors of “Numerous Violations” but Denies They Evangelized New Immigrants
  • An Invitation To Transparency: Reflections on an Open Salary Spreadsheet
  • Why One Zoom Class Has Generated a Following
  • The Blessings in 2020’s Losses

Categories

The Way Back Machine

Footer

What We Do

eJewish Philanthropy highlights news, resources and thought pieces on issues facing our Jewish philanthropic world in order to create dialogue and advance the conversation. Learn more.

Top 40 Philanthropy Blogs, Websites & Influencers in 2020

Copyright © 2021 · eJewish Philanthropy · All Rights Reserved