2007 - United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

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