USCJ Review - Fall 2005
Weaving a Jewish Web - A Toronto Synagogue Builds Community Online
"Many synagogue websites are little more than electronic brochures," says Rabbi Roy Tanenbaum, one of the rabbis at Beth Tzedec Congregation in Toronto. "Once you see a site like that, you never have to look at it again. Some sites have risen to the level of a bulletin, and some of those are even kept current. You can refer to those sites to find out what's happening. But we wanted more."
Beth Tzedec's home on the web, www.beth-tzedec.org, is not one of those sites.
"The synagogue's site is designed for ongoing use," Rabbi Tanenbaum said. "It aims to be educational and to take full advantage of the potential the technology offers by being interactive."
Website visitors can find frequently updated information about ongoing and special activities, up-to-the-minute Jewish and Israeli news, candle lighting and minyan times, online study opportunities, emergency Israel action needs, special pages for specific age groups, Jewish dating, a job board, help for specific situations, how to help, news about synagogue members, and a range of links for Jews living modern lives.
Even more to the point, Rabbi Tanenbaum said, "Beth Tzedec's communication is now two-way."
Not only are sermons posted, but congregants can post comments to it. Congregants can start a dialogue, ask halachic questions, or post a review of a Jewish book. They can take courses, they can arrange a trip and find out where the synagogues, kosher restaurants, and mikvahs are before they leave home. They can make reservations for a program or a Shabbat dinner.
The site's interactive pages include, among very many others, kosher recipes, sermons and articles by its rabbis, Ask the Rav, a column about Torah psychology, and the weekly "Lawrie's Jokes," which offers old-style Catskill humor, 21st century style.
Rabbi Tanenbaum works on the site, but he's not exactly the webmaster. Instead, "I like to think of myself as the rabbinic content adviser," he said. "Actually we have many webmasters - a good dozen, both staff and lay - and we are looking for more. It is a key to our creativity."
The software the synagogue uses allows the website to maintain a consistent look even though it has many administrators. "One person can master the Kids Only page, another the Israel Action page, and still another the Jewish Genealogy page," Rabbi Tanenbaum said.
It's just a few-minute job to train administrators, he continued, and they do not have to know HTML to upload or edit. For example, Lawrie Prusky of "Lawrie's Jokes" is a mortgage banker, not an information technology specialist, but he needed just a few minutes of instruction to be able to master posting his column. And the software, provided by Cherniak Software, works well with the other programs the synagogue uses. "It is important to us that material to go onto the site does not have to be recast first, and that material taken from the site doesn't have to be recast either," Rabbi Tanenbaum said. "The same formatting can be used for the website, email, posters, flyers, and bulletins."
Among the website's special features is "narrowcasting - cost-free, individualized messaging to the entire Beth Tzedec congregation," Rabbi Tanenbaum continued. "Our site uses permission mailing strategies. People choose what they want to receive." People can deal with potential information overload, he said, by tailoring the messages that come through to them to fit their interests. They only get the email they want.
"We depend on a relationship of trust," Rabbi Tanenbaum said. "As we develop them, our discussion boards and listservs will allow people to focus on issues they might not otherwise discuss. By using the site, their own synagogue and their own rabbis accompany them on their Jewish paths in ways that otherwise they could not have done. And it also reaches members where they are - on a break at work, or at home at 11 p.m., after the children are in bed. 'Beth Tzedec' shows up on their computer screens, and validates being Jewish."
Technology enhances Beth Tzedec's ability to achieve its mission by involving each congregant on his or her own level, according to the rabbi. "It allows us to create new means to achieve told tasks - to build reciprocal ties with congregants, to extend their learning opportunities and knowledge, to become not only a physical center of Judaism but also a spiritual impetus for Jewish transformation.
The website helps the synagogue get in touch often hard-to-reach teenagers and young adults, and with people who have not yet joined the synagogue. "Another part of the challenge is to reposition Beth Tzedec in the minds of non-members and members as the with-it, current, inviting, young place it is," Tanenbaum said. "We want Beth Tzedec to mean innovation, higher quality, and superior service in a broad array of specific market segments: children, youth, singles, young couples, marrieds, families, empty nesters and seniors. This, too, is part of our mission.
"By touching people who were not reachable by other means, the new technology provides a gateway back into the synagogue. It supports members in leading multifaceted personal Jewish lives."
The community's responses to the website have been gratifying, Rabbi Tanenbaum said. "The other day, one of our singles arrived at a committee meeting singing the praises of our dating service. Can there be a greater mitzvah than helping our Jewish singles connect? A few weeks ago, the founder and president of a company that designs and maintains websites for many congregations called to ask if he could copy our 'What To Do If?' page.
"When we designed our 'Kids Only' page, we looked for a good parashat hashavua column on the web that we could link to, but we discovered that there is nothing available for kids leading modern lives." So a Beth Tzedec member, Beverlee Swayze, decided to write it herself. In the first two weeks that the column was up, letters came from all over, including from Israel, praising it.
The website's main goal is twofold - "Jew building and community building" -- according to Rabbi Tanenbaum. "On our site, you can join a course or consult the community calendar; review the latest synagogue announcements; get a list of mohels, mikvahs, and kosher restaurants; copy your neighbor's mandelbrot recipe; take advantage of opportunities to make a difference for Israel, chesed, AIDS, or Jews in foreign lands; post on our Job Board; find volunteer opportunities; click into our kids only page or teen time page; design a personal Jewish learning program through the Jewish Personal Trainer page; join a havurah; find out about our Shabbat synaplex; and even create a virtual minyan through our virtual minyan/healing page," he said.
"Congregants can respond to family issues with concrete suggestions and with theoretical material designed to inculcate Jewish values and acculturate Jewish youngsters. For many, the most effective inspiration is from fellow Jews sharing their own thoughts and feelings. Thus, through maximal use of technology, congregants get added personal value for their membership. In a large congregation such as ours, a site of this sort provides a gateway for similarly directed congregants to meet each other, teach each other, exchange views, even to join and celebrate with one another, and most important, to grow Jewishly."
As successful as the website is now, Rabbi Tanenbaum thinks that both its content and the technology that supports it will continue to grow, change, and improve. "I can go to a hotel and order a movie or check out right from the TV screen," he said. "Why shouldn't I be able to go to my synagogue website and buy something at the gift shop or pay a bill? Both of those features are coming. And look for even more interactive content: chat rooms, listservs, online discussion boards, and expanded office services.
"Information that comes in can be posted immediately, in every place it belongs. You'll be able to sign up for free stuff, take a course, pay bills, make contributions, sign up for perpetual memorials, register for Hebrew school, order from the caterer, select a library book, submit information and photos for posting.
"You'll be able to grow and learn Jewishly in your own time, directly from our website."
Bob Cherniak, a member of Beth Tzedec, is a principal at the software house that designed the tools that allow even people who do not have technical skills to create and post content to a websites.
