USCJ Review - Fall 2006
News from the Movement
There is a great deal going on in our movement. Each year, such programs as USY Pilgrimage, the New Directors' Institute, Sulam, and Imun, to name just a few of many, draw more participants to many days of excitement, learning, and discovery. We also always begin new programs and offer one-of-a-kind responses to the world as it changes around us.
Here is news from a few of United Synagogue's many programs:
Living Social Justice -- Rally for Darfur
On April 30, thousands of members of United Synagogue-affiliated congregations and USY groups joined an estimated 75,000 people at a rally to protest the genocide in Darfur. Many traveled for hours, and some were on the road for more than a day, just to be able to be counted on the Mall in Washington.
We are proud of the members of our community who showed up, but we cannot stop now. The situation remains dire, and the need remains great. In many ways, our task has just begun. We must continue to send postcards, write letters, make phone calls, and let our elected leaders know that the genocide in Darfur must stop now. For more information on how you can help, go to the American Jewish World Service or savedarfur.com.
Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center
The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism's Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center, home away from home for North American Conservative Jews, hosted a record number of visitors this summer - students of all ages from the United States, Canada, England, France, Argentina, Holland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Germany, and Italy joined to study texts and enjoy the gold and stone of Jerusalem. Back on this continent, United Synagogue regions have begun fundraising for the Center. That effort has been lead by the New Jersey region, which has begun a campaign to raise at least $800,000. For more information about the Center, call United Synagogue's director of campaign development and marketing, Ron Friedman, at 646 519-9260, or email him at friedman@uscj.org.
Tzohar Biloxi - Helping Repair the World
We know that we live in a fragile world. As Jews, one of our tasks is to help make it better. We are often told to rebuild the world; in Biloxi, Mississippi, we have the chance to do it literally. We can help rebuild Biloxi.
Just who is we? Congregations, social action committees, sisterhoods, men's clubs, religious school parents' groups, other committees, ad hoc groups, nuclear or extended families, couples, singles - anyone who wants to help. Anyone who wants to make a difference.
We have chosen to call our project Tzohar Biloxi. Why? When God told Noah to create an ark, God added a specific instruction. The ark must include a window - a tzohar - God said. It was through this window that Noah first saw the rays of light telling him that the rain had stopped. It was also through this window that Noah could see what was happening to the world as it emerged around him. The tzohar was a portal for the first ray of hope, and it also was a reminder that even when we are sheltered from the outside world, we must always be aware of what is happening to others, and to the world around us.
In June, NAASE, the North American Association of Synagogue Executives, held its meeting in Biloxi and spent a day working on Tzohar Biloxi. Here, Rabbi Moshe Edelman, United Synagogue's director of leadership development and congregational programming, pauses in the middle of a home cleanup.
Noah's flood ended with a rainbow and was followed by rebuilding, renewal, and rebirth. That's what's happening on the Gulf Coast, too, and we are going to be part of it.
For more information about Tzohar Biloxi, click here.
Of course, the cleanup goes on in New Orleans too. For volunteer opportunities in the New Orleans area, go to www.jewishnola.com.
Council of Regional President Honors Irwin Cotler
United Synagogue's Council of Regional Presidents, holding its annual meeting in Montreal this spring, honored Dr. Irwin Cotler for his leadership in the struggle for human rights around the world. Dr. Cotler, a member of the Canadian Parliament and a former attorney general and justice minister, is equally comfortable with the Talmud and the Magna Carta. He accepted a special-edition leather-bound copy of the Conservative movement's chumash, Etz Hayim, and talked to the council about the relationship between Jewish tradition and our contemporary understanding of human rights.
From left in the photo above - United Synagogue's international president, Dr. Raymond B. Goldstein, Paul Kochberg, chair of the Council of Regional Presidents, Dr. Irwin Cotler, and Rabbi Jerome Epstein, United Synagogue's executive vice president, stand together in Montreal.
Hazak Retreat
In June, Hazak, United Synagogue's group for adults 55 and older, went on retreat to Block and Hexter Vacation Center in northeastern Pennsylvania. They slept in rustic lakeside cabins, listened to talks, learned, laughed, listened to klezmer, listened to opera, ate, played games, and developed into a community. One of the highlights was Shabbat - they celebrated Kabbalat Shabbat in an outdoor pavilion as the sun was setting, dragon-flies skimmed the surface of the lake, and ducks and their ducklings floated nearby. At week's end, participants received certificates in Jewish Living, Learning and Laughter.
Next year's Hazak retreat - the third annual one - is set for June 13, 2007. More information is available at United Synagogue's regional offices.
Project Reconnect Finds Room in Synagogues, Goes To Israel
Through United Synagogue's Project Reconnect, anyone who was affiliated with a youth program run by United Synagogue, including but not limited to USY, Kadima, Nativ, Koach, a Schechter school, or LTF, or other Conservative movements programs including Camp Ramah, is invited to meet old friends, make new ones, relive the past, and help us create a new future together.
This year, like last year, Project Reconnect is matching Conservative Jews with synagogues for the High Holidays. Last year, its first, Come Home For the Holidays matched hundreds of people who were out of town for the holidays or had recently moved and had not yet joined a synagogue with seats and sometimes with holidays meals as well. Last spring, through Kol Dichfin, Project Reconnect found room at private or communal sedarim for people who otherwise would have had no place to go on Pesach. This year, we hope to match even more Jews with pews during the holidays, and we hope to continue that connection during the year that follows.
This summer, Project Reconnect assembled a trip to Israel; Kesher L'Yisrael II participants enjoyed a private David Broza concert, met with "lonely soldiers" -- IDF members who do not have relatives in Israel - and the girlfriends or fiancees of soldiers who died protecting their country; spent Shabbat at the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center, and toured Israel. At a meeting with Israeli Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, Barak, in the Jerusalem Post's words, "dropped a potential bombshell" when he told the group that "Israelis are being deprived of their rights by being prohibited from marrying in civil ceremonies."
For more information about United Synagogue's Project Reconnect or to register, go to www.projectreconnect.org.
Membership Recruitment, Integration, and Retention Listserv
Tiremakers don't have to reinvent the wheel, writers don't have to imagine their own alphabets, and presidents of United Synagogue-affiliated congregations don't have to create solutions to problems other synagogue have faced and overcome. So why should membership committee leaders not learn from the experiences of others?
A new listserv will allow membership committee leaders to learn from history and each other as they tackle the challenges of membership recruitment, integration, and retention. Based on United Synagogue's Presidents' Listserv and initiated and established by Miriam Benson, the executive director of United Synagogue's Connecticut Valley region, the moderated listserv will be open to lay leaders who chair relevant committees, and to the professionals with whom they work. They will be able to share ideas, brainstorm, consult with each other, and work together to help their synagogues and the movement grow.
Ms. Benson and Roby Lazarus of Temple Beth El in Stamford, Connecticut, will moderate the listserv.
So far, 103 people have subscribed. We hope to have at least one leader from each of our 750+ congregations on the listserv, sharing, learning, and teaching.
For more information, email Miriam Benson at benson@uscj.org.
Yashir Koach!
It was a busy graduation season this spring. Here, Richard Moline, the director of Koach, United Synagogue's college outreach program, left, wearing his academic robe, stands with Dr. Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, president of George Washington University in Washington DC. Rich gave the benediction at commencement; his own son, Noah, was among the graduates.
Secure Community Network
The world in which we live today is dangerous in many ways, some of them new. Although much of the world around us faces the same risks we do, we in the Jewish community have a particularly strong need to learn to protect our institutions and our communities. The Secure Community Network is part of the Jewish community's response to heightened security concerns.
The Secure Community Network, or SCN, is a nonprofit consortium of Jewish organizations; the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism is one of the ten permanent members of its board of directors. SCN's website, www.scnus.org, is geared for Jewish professionals, laypeople, and others who work with, in,or for Jewish institutions. It features a great deal of useful information, including hundreds of best-practice resources and thousands of pages of material about all aspects of prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery, and it has been praised by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other law enforcement organizations. (In fact, the DHS has called the site one of the most comprehensive its officials have reviewed.) The material on the site is culled from scores of governmental, public, and private partners and organized to be useful to synagogues' professional and lay leaders. It is updated regularly.
The website provides links to a wide variety of resources and functions, including information sharing, incident reporting, and safety and security information. The site provides up-to-date government alerts and warnings about potential threats and hazards. Best-practices security resources offer information on how to upgrade the ways synagogue leaders can protect such institutions as synagogues, schools, camps, and JCCs, and how they can keep both special events and ongoing activities safe. SCN's best practices archives and model security policies and procedures offer hard-won advice on subjects ranging from hiring a security consultant to handling bomb threats, media relations, and physical security. The site also includes links to scores of government and counterterrorism sites, state homeland security offices, upcoming security events and seminars. Website visitors also can learn about applying for DHS funds and grants; organizers hope to add forums for security managers and on-demand training courses.
To learn more about what SCN's website and other services offer, go to the website, www.scnus.org, and click on some of its many internal and external links.
