Greetings

For a message from Rabbi Jerome M. Epstein, click here.

A Message from the President

B'rukhim ha-ba'im!! Welcome to the website of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. I hope you will take the time to look around the site and discover the resources that are available to you here. If you don't find what you are looking for please do not hesitate to email me at rgoldstein@uscj.org, or to get in touch with your regional director. I suggest you bookmark our site so you can come back to it easily whenever you have a question.

The Conservative movement and the synagogues that form United Synagogue are a halakhic entity that separates itself from the other major strands of Judaism by recognizing a pluralistic, evolving halakha. We do not apologize about our stance - instead, we sing its praises. We have beliefs that are intellectually honest and halakhically authentic. Our halakha sets boundaries, which form the walls of a tent. It is a tent large enough to house the pluralism that is a hallmark of our movement; a large enough to cover, protect, and value the authenticity of egalitarian and non-egalitarian minyanim.

Each of us must work with our congregations' professionals in a partnership based on mutual respect and support. As equals, we will develop a strategy for educating and engaging our members about the joy and passion of being Conservative Jews. Professionals must feel supported and protected so they may challenge the very foundation of the belief systems that each member holds dear. Leaders; whether klei kodesh or baalei bayit, professional or lay; must risk the consequences of intellectual honesty.

As the congregational branch of the Conservative movement, United Synagogue must welcome and actively include all who work for the betterment of our congregations. We cannot represent just the laity United Synagogue is the organization most capable of providing the large tent under which all of us may sit and work together to develop one voice, which speaks for all our congregations. We must sit together to develop strategies to sustain, improve, and grow our congregations. We must work together to promulgate and implement those strategies.

Goals:

United Synagogue must enhance the work of Alim, the committee whose role is to help develop or grow Conservative kehillot where they do not exist. We must provide the nucleus around which congregations may develop. We must provide the tools to assist in the evolution of new Conservative congregations where the demographics and the time are right. We will do this to engage Conservative Jews.
Conservative Judaism is intellectual Judaism. It's not enough just to bring our scholars to synagogues once a year for scholar-in-residence programs. We must do more Pirkei avot teaches: Select a master teacher for yourself; acquire a colleague for study. United Synagogue must begin to take advantage of new technology to provide all our members with the opportunity to be engaged by master teachers. Using such technologies as podcasting, we can provide outreach to seekers of knowledge. We can engage our members in intellectual debate at a time they select, at a place they select. United Synagogue will plug in and reach out to the minds of our constituency, young and old.
College and graduate school years are for many of us a time of exploration, experimentation, and escape. This is when our children are most vulnerable, and the community most likely to lose them. Challenges to our children's Conservative connections come from both outside and inside the Jewish community. We cannot allow the investments we have all made in our youth to be lost from Conservative Judaism. Koach, our college program, is our only defense. We will expand Koach's reach.
Project Reconnect has identified a large pool of people who once were active in our programs but have become disengaged. We will identify strategies to aid congregations at reaching out to these people.
United Synagogue congregations must get better at reaching out respectfully to intermarried families. Edud is a starting point. We will engage seekers. We will not turn away Jews.
USY remains one of United Synagogue's gems. Its regional and international programs are exceptional. But USY can only be as good as its congregational chapters. We recommit to helping our congregations provide exceptional programs for their teenagers.

The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism's Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center will become a world center for Conservative Judaism. You have to visit the Center to see what is going on there! Young adults taking time between college and graduate or professional school to study fill the Conservative Yeshiva with life. At Project Oded,,Elderhostel-like classes provide challenging study. Elsewhere in the complex, community members can take classes in ceramics or hold their wedding receptions. And that's just a fraction of what the Center offers.

At Kabbalat Shabbat services at Fuchsberg, as you sit surrounded by Nativ-niks -- teenagers studying in Israel for a year between high school and college and by the students from the Conservative Yeshiva, you feel the joy and the kavanah that is there for all of us, if only we were to pay attention to it and reach out for it. This energy and vitality can be the spark that will ignite the renaissance in all of our kehillot.

By focusing our energy and our resolve, we will ignite a renaissance of Conservative Judaism within our congregations throughout North America. Let us join together for this goal.It is time to put Us, all of us, into Conservative Judaism. USCJ is the Us in Conservative Judaism.

Dr. Ray Goldstein

A Message from the Executive Vice-President

As Conservative Jews, we have been drawn to the importance of Jewish study. We have prized our attention to learning, and we can be proud of the attention we have given to our educational ventures.

Most synagogue schools strive to engage their students in high-quality Jewish education. The Solomon Schechter Day School network offers a superior Jewish educational experience. In addition, as I read synagogue bulletins, I am impressed with the catalogue-type listing of adult education courses.

Recent studies of the Conservative Movement have pointed to the effectiveness of Jewish educational institutions within our Movement. Our attention and effort have produced positive results. Yet these same studies point to the dramatic disparity between levels of Jewish education and the transference of that knowledge to "living" Jewish values on a daily basis.

Our challenge as Conservative Jews must be to stress that Judaism is not an academic subject; it is a way of life. Conservative Jews learn about Judaism all the time. Some of us read books and attend adult education courses. Others derive insight from the weekly Torah reading or from the rabbi's sermon. Unfortunately, most congregants separate intellectual or academic growth from growth in Jewish living. When we teach how Jews observe kashrut or Shabbat, congregants hear: "those Jews," but not "me." We teach how Jews pray or strive to observe mitzvot. In the congregant's ears, the words become "other Jews," but not "us."

Congregants learn about our ancestors and the values of our tradition, but we usually do not help them draw the connection between their heritage and their daily life. Our goal must be to challenge Conservative Jews so that they will ask: "What about us? What kind of Jews are we?" Unless we stimulate congregants to make the leap from passive listeners -- or worse, people who ignore the Jewish message -- to individuals who engage and grapple with Jewish living, Jewish life will be irrelevant. Jewish learning without Jewish living misses the point.

Whether we choose to or not, each Conservative Jew plays a role in affecting Jewish living. Congregants learn from observing other congregants. They will either learn to care, or learn not to care, from watching you and me. They will learn to live Jewishly, or not to live Jewishly, from observing you and me. They will learn that they have to grow, or else decide that it's not important.

The way we model Jewish living is important, but it is not sufficient to stimulate a change in behavior. Sometimes, the message must also be conveyed explicitly. If something is important to us, we speak about it. The Jewish Living Now Campaign of the Conservative Movement depends upon each Jew talking to every other Jew. If you observe Shabbat at any level, you are equipped to influence someone who does not observe Shabbat at all. If kashrut, prayer or acts of loving kindness are part of your life, you can influence others to ask themselves: "What about me? What does Judaism say to me? What does the heritage of my ancestors mean to me? How can I make the legacy that I have received as a gift from previous generations part of my own life?"

Judaism must not be merely an academic subject -- it must be a way of life. Let your synagogue help you grow in Jewish learning so that you may enrich your Jewish living every day.