2007 - United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

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students Hanukkah menorahs, Yom HaShoah candles, matzah, and other materials to allow them to celebrate these occasions away from home. Our College Outreach Committee is eager to begin two new initiatives. The first is to purchase a piece of Judaica, either a mezuzah or tzedakah box, for each of our college graduates. The second new program for next year is to match college students who are interested in different jobs or areas of study with members of the congregation. B’nai Israel is proud of its long tradition of college outreach. It is one that we cherish and know if will have a lasting impact on the lives of our synagogue members. SILVER B’NAI TORAH CONGREGATION Over 900 Boca Raton, FL Submitted by Cheri Kalvort 561-392-8566 Our College Connection is a bridge between campus life and home and community. The synagogue helps to keep the students connected Jewishly. Many of the parents and even siblings and grandparents of the students serve on the committee and help pack the gift boxes 4 times a year. Gifts, including sweets, appropriate ritual items, and written materials are sent for the fall holidays, Chanukah, Purim, and Passover. In addition, we send a smaller mailing before Tu B’ shevat. The weekly email communications between the rabbis and the students open the opportunity for discussion and dialogue. Our rabbis visit colleges in the state and invite the students to a meal with a “taste of home”. This program is an integral part of synagogue life, and is important to the young adults. Gatherings during vacations allow them to meet each other again, rekindle relationships, and enrich their lives. HONORABLE MENTION TEMPLE BETH AM 500-900 Margate, FL Submitted by Pennie Ascowitz 954-968-4545 Temple Beth Am’s College Outreach Program is highly committed to maintaining a connection with our college students. This year we sent packages for Purim and Passover, brimming with treats. Our Purim package included Hamantasben, baked in our Temple Beth Am kitchen by temple volunteers and USY students (thus showing our commitment to bridging the bond with our members away from home). These packages included a variety of candy, nuts, dried fruit, and of course a Groger. Our Passover package included chocolate cashew clusters, chocolate covered jellies, fruit jells, candy bars, Matzo Ball Soup Mix, a pound of matzo, assorted Passover nuts, along with a Haggadah. All of the food sent is of the highest quality and is strictly kosher. In addition, each package included a letter from the Rabbi along with a greeting from College Outreach. Putting together these packages is no small feat. With 70 students on our mailing list, filling these boxes is no small task. We have to fill, label, and make sure each box has the proper postage. Since our students are in schools all over the United States covering 6 separate postal zones, this part of the job is of major importance. It is a labor of love — you get back what you put in. We at Temple Beth Am are very proud to be able to offer this worthwhile program to our students. As a continued commitment to our program, our Rabbi visits students at two of the Florida colleges (where many of our students attend). During these visits he had either lunch or dinner with the students and had the opportunity to spend time with them and catch up with news. Also, he has full communication with the students via e-mail, thus enabling them to seek him out for his guidance and great debates. At times during the year, when students are back in town and attend services, the Rabbi makes sure to announce the fact that the students are back with us. This bond is part of the unity in our temple. Throughout the year, our students also receive a copy of the Scribe, our monthly temple magazine. This enables them to stay in touch with the community, friends and family. We want to encourage and enhance each student’s ability to celebrate his or her Jewish identity, both at Holiday times and throughout the year. At Temple Beth Am our family remains close regardless of the distance.
HONORABLE MENTION CONGREGATION BETH SHALOM 250-500 Wilmington, DE Submitted by Roland Roth 302-654-4562 When he first started two years ago our Director of Education and Programming inherited a Hebrew School with about twenty children enrolled. One of the first connections he made in the community was with the Hillel Director at the local university. A connection was requested with potential Koach leaders with regard to potentially teaching in the Hebrew School if the goal of increased enrollment was to be achieved. Fast forward two years and attendance is now over ninety (grades Pre-K through 8th) and we have gone from three teachers, all over fifty-five years of age, to eleven teachers, seven of whom are college students (of whom three attended the Schusterman College Leadership program at the most recent CAJE conference)! College students who are connected to the Conservative Movement through Koach are great resources for Hebrew Schools: they have the passion and only need the text and pedagogical skills (which can be taught, unlike passion!). Our VP for Membership last year was able to get a volunteer on her committee to take charge of sending gift baskets to our congregation’s members who are in college all across the country. This task, which was never done before this year, was daunting in the beginning (getting names, current addresses, etc.) but has blossomed into a source of great pride in our congregational community. Four times this year, on Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot, Hanukkah, and Passover, gift baskets with goodies, letters from the Rabbi, and other items were received by over twenty member college students who grew up in our congregation. This is a tremendous number for a congregation that until a few years ago only had three hundred family units. This initiative, led by a lay leader (Francine Venit), was successful due to great brainstorming, solid delegating, and in the end the fine tenacity of our volunteer leadership who saw this program from a dream to a reality. The response from the greater congregation to having younger staff hired to help with the burgeoning Hebrew School (complementing our established teachers), plus the wonderful new gift baskets now received by our college students on their college campuses, has been unanimously positive. Even those without children in college see how vitally important both initiatives are with regard to Jewish continuity and for the strengthening of our bonds with the future leadership of our synagogue. LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT GOLD BETH EL CONGREGATION OF SOUTH HILLS 250-500 Pittsburgh, PA Submitted by Deborah Scheimer 412-561-1168 Each year at Beth El we hold one or more Board leadership training sessions for our Board members. In August 2006, we wanted to provide an interactive training session for our Board members to clarify the characteristics needed in leadership at Beth EL We decided to create a document detailing Board responsibilities, and as a part of that process, engaged the services of Janice Bahary, a local leadership consultant. Janice worked with our leadership to create an interactive program with our Board. During this educational session, we brainstormed leadership characteristics, put them on large easel sheets around the room, broke out into evenly-divided groups based on the characteristics individuals were interested in discussing, and then each group developed a list of behaviors which would demonstrate leadership in their category. The groups then came together as a whole to discuss the leadership behaviors developed in each category and ultimately came to agreement as to which behaviors we were prepared to encourage in our Board members. At a subsequent Board meeting, these Board responsibilities were presented in a document and ratified by our Board members. As a result of the above training, Janice spoke with Ed Frimm, the Executive Director of Pittsburgh’s Agency for Jewish Learning, and mentioned that we were interested in Board Leadership training. Ed held discussions with our leadership and engaged Pittsburgh’s Resident Community Scholar, Rabbi Danny Schiff to develop a program exploring moral and ethical principles of Jewish leadership. From these discussions, Rabbi Schiff developed a 4-week training program for synagogue leadership. We invited our Executive Committee and Board of Trustees to these weekly sessions. After the 4 sessions, our leadership requested a continuation of the training for an additional 2 sessions which
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THE UNITED SYNAGOGUE OF CONSERVATIV
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THE UNITED SYNAGOGUE OF CONSERVATIV
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Temple Beth El Allentown, PA Gold 2
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The Emanuel Synagogue West Hartford
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mornings after Minyan. Teachers for
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Members rely on The Bulletin as the
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nourishment to feed the minds of it
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2007 - United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

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