USCJ Review - Spring 2007
Convention 2007 – Join Us!
According to the great 20th-century Conservative Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel, Shabbat is a “cathedral in time,” our weekly opportunity to separate from the mundane and live somehow in the holy.
For the first time in a long time, United Synagogue’s biennial convention will be held over Shabbat. We will turn the brandnew, luxurious, sun-struck Rosen Shingle Resort in Orlando into our very own cathedral.
The convention is set for November 29 to December 3. That’s Thursday through Monday; Shabbat will act as a natural divider as we consider the practical aspects of Conservative synagogue life on Thursday and Friday and look toward the future on Sunday and Monday.
Programming on Thursday and Friday will “focus on practical, congregational concerns,” said Rabbi Paul Drazen, United Synagogue’s chief program delivery officer, who is putting the convention programming together. There will be concurrent workshops for small, medium, and large congregations, sessions on technological and other basic operational issues, and groups discussing both edud – active outreach to interfaith families – and leadership training. Discussions of such synagogue basics as fundraising, membership recruitment and retention, and formal and informal education will be available; so too will be looks at such newer issues as how to make a shul greener.
A centerpiece of those two days, and of the convention as a whole, will be social justice, which has always been of central importance to the Conservative movement. There will be a separate room at the hotel where convention-goers can investigate social-action opportunities, reports Barry Mael, United Synagogue’s chief service delivery officer, who is in charge of the convention’s logistics.
On Thursday night, the convention will open with a talk by Dr. Arnold Eisen, who by then will have become the new chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary. Befitting the Conservative movement’s theme of unity and diversity, on Friday night we will welcome the Shabbat Queen together and then share dinner and song. On Saturday morning we will be able to choose from a range of minyanim – plans so far include at least one shacharit service with instrumental music, a musaf with traditional chazzanut, at least three different styles of Torah reading, and both egalitarian and nonegalitarian services.
We will say goodbye to Shabbat on Saturday evening and then spend the rest of the night on Israeli-style entertainment, including live music and great food.
On Sunday and Monday, we will look at our visions of the future and plan ways to get there. “Our environment changes, where we live changes, how we live changes, and our community changes – so our spiritual community changes as well. How do we prepare for those changes?” Rabbi Drazen asks. Speakers looking at those changes will include Dr. Ron Wolfson of the Whizin Institute at the University of Judaism, a well-known speaker, writer, and activist. Allan Sugarman, a member of New Jersey’s Marlboro Jewish Center whose brainchild, an interactive, interdisciplinary, largely English-language machzor, has revitalized High Holiday services at his shul and is the focus of much interest in the movement, will speak as well.
On Sunday evening we will also honor the winners of the Solomon Schechter Awards, granted for synagogue programs that expand and enrich synagogue life. One constant throughout the whole convention will be study. Participants will be invited both to yeshiva-style learning sessions led by the director of United Synagogue’s Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center, Rabbi James Lebeau, and to more formal lectures. Some of those lectures will be given by Dr. Richard Freund, a rabbi and professor at the University of Hartford who specializes in ancient Middle Eastern archeology. Study groups will be on offer on Shabbat afternoon (and, of course, anyone whose Shabbat routine invariably includes a nap will find that the pillow still beckons).
To fill out the experience, vendors will offer a wide range of goods and services; you’ll be able to find anything from Israeli jewelry and to architects with experience in synagogue design to technologists selling the latest in synagogue-office software.
To learn more about the convention, look at our website, www.uscj.org; our convention newsletter will be updated often as the convention draws closer.
See you at the convention!
