2007 - United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

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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
doing the serving and the clean-up. We hope that, though we won’t be seeing all of our members at any one given time, we see some of them at least once. HONORABLE MENTION B’NAI ISRAEL CONGREGATION Over 900 Rockville, MD Submitted by Rebecca Boggs 301 881 6550 B’nai Israel is committed to creating and sustaining a welcoming and engaging synagogue community. Our culture of welcoming begins from your very first contact — in person at the synagogue, online on our website, or in conversation over the telephone. We have grown by over 200 families in the past two years, to a congregation of over 1400 member families. To build on this success as a large and growing congregation while continuing to connect each member to the community, we have focused on membership engagement. Our commitment to membership engagement led us to create a full-time Membership Engagement Coordinator position — an innovative step that distinguishes us among our synagogue peers. Our Membership Engagement Coordinator assists the leadership of B’nai Israel Congregation in fulfilling its mission to create and sustain a vibrant community that fosters the spiritual growth of its individual members, in welcoming new individuals to join our community, and in fostering a community of involvement at all levels. In conjunction with this new staff position, we have reinvigorated and restructured our Membership Committee. Although we continue to reach out to prospective members with a variety of programs and publicity that invite them to join our community, our primary focus over the past two years has been on engaging members of the congregation and encouraging them to become more active in Jewish life. The materials that follow are divided into three sections: 1) membership engagement — how we define engagement and what we have accomplished with it; 2) welcoming new members — the steps we take to make newly-arrived members part of this community of engagement; 3) reaching out to prospective members — how we reach out to the larger community and invite people to become part of our congregation. This section includes our program for individualized response by staff and laity, “gateway” programs open to all, and special “open house” opportunities to welcome prospective members. OUTREACH TO YOUNG ADULTS AND SINGLES GOLD Over 900 AHAVATH ACHIM SYNAGOGUE Atlanta, GA 404-355-5222 “Today, the majority of individuals in their twenties and early thirties have no congregational affiliations; their affiliation rate is lower than that of any other age group.”[Synagogue 3000 Studies Institute report, Synagogues That Get It: How Jewish Congregations Are Engaging Young Adults, pg.2]. Atlanta is no exception, which is why, Ahavath Achim Synagogue (AA), located in Atlanta, Georgia, has made concerted efforts over the past two years to reach out to young professionals, those in their 20’s to 40’s, in our community. Through the creation of various programs and in participation with other community projects/programs AA has established itself within this demographic. Our efforts began in October 2005 when AA co-sponsored a build with JDate for Habitat for Humanity. This was AA’s first program specifically targeting young professionals outreach. At that time we had about 30 names of young professionals that we contacted. Approximately 50 to 60 people who were in attendance at the event. This event formed the basis for our mailing list.
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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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etreat in the spring of 2008. This
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ather than Chinese-American, and of
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100-250 San Leandro, CA Submitted b
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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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HONORABLE MENTION COMMACK JEWISH CE
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2007 - United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

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