2007 - United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

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included additional training with Beth El’s Rabbi, Alex Greenbaum. The entire training program was held from January through March 2007. These training sessions helped us to increase our awareness of how to make decisions using Jewish morals and values. As a result of our training sessions we have asked our Rabbi, Alex Greenbaum, to give a 10- to 15-minute training session at the beginning of each Board meeting. His talk will specifically relate to the Jewish moral and ethical values that will apply to decisions that we have to make at that meeting. As a result of our training we have also set a goal to better integrate Jewish leadership characteristics into our Board Responsibilities document. We realized that we didn’t include enough Jewish leadership characteristics and responsibilities during our initial brainstorming session of leadership characteristics. In addition, we have realized a need to communicate these leadership characteristics and Board Responsibilities to our Nominating committee, and to integrate them into their selection process. LIBRARIES GOLD TEMPLE EMUNAH 500-900 Lexington, MA Submitted by Toni Stechler 781-861-0300 Two years after Temple Emunah expanded and renovated the synagogue and Hebrew School, creating wonderful new spaces for worshipping, meeting, and learning, we noticed that the library had been neglected. In the spring of 2005, Lori Reubenstein was asked to form a new Library Committee. After assessing the needs of the synagogue, she recruited some volunteers and began making plans to revitalize the library. A generous donation provided some money to carry out these plans, as well as set up a Library Endowment Fund. Lori, Toni Stechier, and many other volunteers had a long list of projects for the library. We began by upgrading the children’s book collection, creating a more comfortable space for reading and studying, and deciding on the software to use for our electronic catalog. The new library has space for computers, audio-visual materials, periodical display and storage, a comfortable sitting area with chairs and coffee table, and an inviting Children’s Corner. The Library Committee was also determined to improve the adult collection, add DVDs and CDs to our collection, find ways to encourage members to visit the library, and make sure that the library was open during Hebrew School hours. We now have the online edition of the new Encyclopedia Judaica available to any member with Internet access. At the Library Open House, the two congregants who had set up the Library Endowment Fund were overjoyed to see so many kids having fun and learning about the library. “This is why we donated the money!” they said. Temple Emunah is widely admired and respected for its learning and its educational and social action programs for all ages. The members are delighted that we now have a flourishing library to match these high standards. GOLD TEMPLE EMANUEL OF NEWTON Over 900 Newton Centre, MA Submitted by Helene Tuchman 617-558-8100 We have established satellite library collections throughout Temple Emanuel -- wherever congregants gather for prayer, study or workshops. • Children’s books are placed together with siddurim throughout the sanctuary and Gann Chapel for use by parents when children’s attention spans begin to wane. • A varied selection of Bible commentaries has been placed in the sanctuary and the Gann Chapel for use by congregants during the Torah service to augment the commentary in Etz Hayim. • A satellite collection of books on the bereavement process and Jewish mourning practices and law is available where the daily minyan meets.
• Judaic classics and special subjects such as a Modern Jewish Philosophy Collection are shelved where teachers and adult education classes have access to them during their presentations. These collections are included in the library’s online catalog so they may be located, accessed and borrowed by staff and congregants whenever they are needed. Our satellite collections are also publicized in Temple publications,, on the Temple list serve, on the website and through snail mail keeping congregants of all interests and ages aware of the vast resources of the Rabbi Marshall R. Lifson Library. MEMBERSHIP GOLD NORTHERN HILLS SYNAGOGUE-B’NAI ABRAHAM 100-250 Cincinnati, OH 513-931-6038 Northern Hills Synagogue-Congregation B’nai Avraham in Cincinnati, OH is most definitely a welcoming place. “Where you’re welcome! Where you count!” is not just a slogan that we use on our web site as well as in publicity, it’s our way of life. Our efforts to make all members become involved, feel connected, and take ownership (from parents, to singles, to children, to young adults), both define and reflect who we are. In the past two years, our WARM (Welcoming and Retaining Members) and Membership committees have developed a membership recruitment and retention program that enhances our welcoming, inclusive, participatory culture. This program includes greeters at services, outreach to intermarried couples, providing transportation, painting murals in our religious school, revising our membership application, developing a protocol for contacting prospective members, delivering welcome baskets, establishing a Mentor program, planning new member orientation/socials, enhancing our new member Shabbatot, redesigning our transliteration booklets, and extending holiday invitations. Our enhanced Membership and WARM programs have ensured that Northern Hills Synagogue-Congregation B’nai Avraham IS where you’re welcome! Where you count! GOLD TEMPLE EMANUEL Over 900 Newton, MA Submitted by Rabbi Wesley Gardenswartz 617-558-8100 One of the most exciting membership and community building initiatives to date at our congregation, Temple Emanuel in Newton Massachusetts is THE SEVEN GATES PROGRAM. Emerging from a multi-year conversation between the staff and lay-leadership of our congregation, this campaign unites multiple arms of our community under the banner of the gates. For years our congregation had been struggling to articulate a vision that would embrace the diversity of our large community of over 1,150 families and yet focus us in a way that would give us a sense of shared mission. We had toyed with the ideas of a “big tent” of “Jacob’s ladder” and other similar Jewish metaphors but none of these ideas were able to succinctly and clearly express our sense of ourselves as a large, welcoming place where all are invited to enter and find some aspect of Jewish life that is personally meaningful to each individual within the context of our larger vibrant community. When we came upon THE SEVEN GATES model, we knew immediately that we had found the right message. It is a message that allows us to do both more effective outreach to the larger community and, perhaps even more importantly, has allowed us to tap our own community with concrete and focused “in-reach.” This program, since its inception last year has been a tremendous success. All arms of our congregation, all our weekly newsletters and major events mailings go out with a particular color and logo of the gate the event or activity falls under, concretizing and unifying all our many community activities of learning, teaching Jewish values to our children, prayer, connection to Israel, celebration of Shabbat, Social Justice and building community. We have named each of these “gates” to increased Jewish participation and meaning both in Hebrew and in English: Talmud Torah (Torah), V’Shinantam L’Vanecha (Teaching Jewish values to our children), Avodat HaLey (Prayer), Ahavat Tziyon
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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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KADIMA USY North Suburban Synagogue
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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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