2007 - United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

able to identify new and prospective leaders. The development of Shul Fest strengthened the different constituent
groups in what they have to offer and how the congregation benefits from them. It gave Har Zion members a very
positive feeling about their Synagogue in general and about what large scale well executed Synagogue programs can do
for them.
Shul Fest turned out to be an extremely successful program; one that we will capitalize on by learning from
this experience and one that, we hope, other congregations will benefit from; eventually adapting and adjusting the
inspiring concepts of Shul Fest into their own programs.
HONORABLE MENTION
TEMPLE BETH AM
500-900 Margate, FL
Submitted by Sandee Galfond 954-968-4545
There’s something wonderfully warm and bonding about sharing services and a Friday night dinner at synagogue with a
group of friends from the congregation. It can be either friends that you come in with or friends that we hope you will
have made during the course of dinner. The problem is that we are all on different schedules, different time frames,
different interest groups, different tolerance levels. Not all of us want to sit in a room with screeching two year olds and
nine year olds running all over the place. (Unless, of course, they are our grandchildren.)
Some of us precisely want to be in a room where our children and infants will be able to interact with other
people’s children and infants. There’s no right or wrong answer. People want choice. And so, we have offered five
different Friday night experiences to five different market segments within our congregation.
Using part of a grant that we received, we subsidized a number of lovely Shabbat dinners, featuring highquality
catered food served by waiters; and because of the subsidy, dinners were a nominal fee of $15.00 per person and
$7.50 for children under the age of 13. Seating was to be limited to the first 100 people. The Cantor and Rabbi led a
little program at each dinner, which followed immediately after our Carlebach service at 6:15. The first dinner was
Friday night, February 4th and was attended by more than eighty “empty nesters” through age 65. This was a chance for
us to get to see many of our members whom we do not see regularly anymore. They were able to come back to
experience a lovely Friday night service and dinner, with old friends and re-connect with the congregation and with
each other. For some, this may have been their first opportunity to get to know our new Cantor a little better, and he led
us in some interesting singing.
Our second dinner was on Friday night, March 4 th , and it was for those who have been members of our
congregation for over 15 years. Sometimes, we tend to forget or take for granted our veterans, some of whom we only
see from high holiday to high holiday. We hoped that this would be be a mid-year re-connection, which is especially
important this year, since many of us did not have an opportunity to get together on Yom Kippur due to the hurricane.
On Friday, March 11th, we conducted a Shabbat dinner for those members who were new to the congregation
since the Millennium. It was for all families who had joined since the year 2000. They were invited as relatively newer
members of the congregation to come and experience a dinner together.
On Friday, April 1, the Shabbat dinner was a Bar and Bat Mitzvah reunion dinner, for all families who have
celebrated a Bar/Bat Mitzvah since the year 2000.
On Friday, April 15 th , we held our last dinner, which was for our golden agers (over 65).
Invitations to each targeted group went out separately, as well as announcements in our monthly publication
“The Scribe.” It is very likely that some people would not fall into at least one of these categories, and if we had left
them out, we wanted to know. We would be happy to have an omnibus Shabbat dinner for everyone who was left out.
This attempt is not to be, nor should it be seen as, being exclusive of anyone. Rather, this was intended to give
choice to individual subgroups, who don’t come to everything, to see this as a personal invitation to come in and to
reconnect, at least this one evening, with their synagogue.
We hope it was enjoyed by all. A culinary treat! High Quality! Low Cost! And, best of all, somebody else was