Participants in the “President’s Panel: Into the Future” on Monday at the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism’s international biennial convention in Cherry Hill include Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly; Cantor Stephen Stein, executive vice president of the Cantors Assembly; Rabbi Steven Wernick, executive vice president and CEO of United Synagogue; and Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies. United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

Do Conservative Jews need a new, perhaps jazzier way to pray?

Rabbi Steven Wernick, executive vice president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, apparently thinks so.

During his much-anticipated installation speech at the United Synagogue’s biennial gathering, which concluded earlier this week in Cherry Hill, he called for the immediate creation of a movement-wide task force to tackle the issue of prayer.

“Many of our congregations report that tefillot in many of our synagogues do not speak to them, do not inspire them, and do not reach their heart or their souls,” said Wernick, who took the helm in July of an organization that represents North American Conservative congregations.

Wernick said that many participants of Ramah camps and United Synagogue youth programs, for example, “come home to find the excitement and spiritual engagement they experience elsewhere missing in their own communities.”

The four-day conference was held as United Synagogue undergoes a structural upheaval brought about in large part by the dissatisfaction of congregations claiming that they weren’t receiving enough programmatic and other kinds of guidance in exchange for their dues.

Many of the more than 500 lay leaders and professionals who came to the biennial from across the United States and Canada did express hope, though tinged with skepticism, that United Synagogue can transform itself into an entity that helps congregations become more dynamic, welcoming, and fiscally stable.

At the conference, United Synagogue adopted a new set of bylaws with the aim of becoming more efficient. They included reducing the size of its board by about half and the number of offices from 15 to six.

Talks were held about changing the formula for determining the dues that congregations pay, but no formal proposals were made.

The biennial also served to jump-start a nine-month process in which United Synagogue will adopt a new long-range strategic plan.

“While we have considerable problems, I think we continue to have the best product,” said Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles.

Artson sat on a panel about the future of the movement with Wernick; Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, the first woman to head the Rabbinical Assembly; and Cantor Stephen Stein, executive vice president of the Cantors Assembly.

During the hour-long discussion, the audience raised pressing questions confronting the movement. Among them: What does it mean to be a Conservative Jew in an age when far fewer Jews identify with denominational labels? How can the movement attract more members in their 20s and 30s? Is the name itself outmoded? How can the arms of the movement work together better?

On the issue of prayer, Stein took a slightly different tack from Wernick.

“You can start by coming to shul. It’s like any other skill set — if you don’t practice it, you aren’t going to be able to do it,” he said, adding that cantors are far more open to experimentation than many realize. “Come to shul and I’ll do anything; I’ll stand on my head and sing ‘Yankee Doodle’ to ‘Adon Olam.’”

Wernick said that too often, worshippers feel they are “prisoners” to the traditional prayerbook, and diversity needs to be encouraged. He also said that clergy need to better explain the poetry and symbolism inherent in the liturgy.

“Adon Olam,” for example, is all about offering worshippers a measure of comfort as they leave sanctified space and head back into a world that can be tense and even frightening.

“We need to really open up the prayers in that kind of way,” he said.

“Whether we sing them to ‘Yankee Doodle’ or the melodies of the great chazzanim,” Wernick said, “they become more than just sing songs and more than just rushing through the words.”

Stein said that while synagogues must try to bring in as many new people as possible — while still appealing to its core — the movement as a whole should count as Conservative Jews only those who follow Jewish law, as opposed to any individual who belongs to a United Synagogue affiliate.

The Cantors Assembly leader pushed some buttons when he suggested that spouses of clergy members — even those with highly demanding careers — need to contribute more time and energy to their congregations.

Schonfeld said that in an age when many are asking if movements and denominations have outlived their usefulness, Conservative Judaism can offer a new working definition of what a denomination can look like.

“That new denomination,” she said, “as opposed to being boxes in which we put people, is going to be more like an ecosystem — more like an interdependent and complex world in which there is room for all different kinds of Jews.”

WASHINGTON – Opposition to a proposed Israeli conversion bill is mounting, from the U.S. Congress to the Israeli prime minister.

Meanwhile, the bill is likely to be put on hold while the Knesset adjourns this week for a two-month recess.

The controversy over the bill erupted last week when its main sponsor, David Rotem of the Yisrael Beiteinu Party, unexpectedly put it to a committee vote. The measure passed by a 5-4 margin, sending it to the full Knesset.

Meant to give would-be converts more leeway in choosing where and how to convert in Israel, the bill also would consolidate control over conversions under the office of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate. Non-Orthodox diaspora Jewish movements and the leadership of the Jewish Federations of North America and Jewish Agency for Israel all have warned that non-Orthodox converts would be put at risk of being disqualified as Jews by the Orthodox-dominated Chief Rabbinate.

Sen. Ron Wyden, left, is asking Jewish Senate colleagues to sign a letter opposing an Israeli conversion bill. Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, right, has agreed to sign the letter. Office of Sen. Ron Wyden/Office of Sen. Frank Lautenburg

In recent days, a Jewish U.S. senator unhappy about the bill, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), began circulating a letter asking fellow lawmakers to join him in condemning the controversial Israeli measure. Wyden’s letter is circulating among the Senate’s 13 Jewish lawmakers for more signatures before it is delivered to Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren.

Meanwhile, in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he opposes the bill in its current form. The bill “could tear apart the Jewish people,” Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday.

Following its passage last week by the Knesset’s Law, Constitution, and Justice Committee, the bill must pass three readings in the Knesset for it to become law. The prime minister said he would try to remove the bill by consensus, but if that fails he will ask members of his Likud Party and other coalition members to oppose it in the Knesset. With the Knesset on the cusp of a long recess, the bill is unlikely to come up for another vote until the fall.

Rotem says the bill aims to simplify the conversion process, empowering local Israeli community rabbis to perform conversions and thereby make it easier for Israelis to convert — including those who don’t intend to adhere to Orthodox observance. But in giving the Chief Rabbinate ultimate authority over conversions, the bill puts non-Orthodox converts at risk and may make it more difficult for non-Orthodox converts to make aliyah, critics in the diaspora warn.

Rotem says the bill should not concern diaspora Jews.

“It has nothing to do with Jews in the diaspora,” Rotem told JTA last week. “It is only an Israeli matter.”

Shas Party Chairman Eli Yishai, a member of Netanyahu’s coalition government, said he supports the bill.

“The absence of a conversion law is the greatest spiritual danger for the people of Israel at this time,” he told Ynet.

In the United States, the Rabbinical Council of America, an Orthodox organization, said that “While the legislation in question may not be perfect, we who live in North America must recognize that it does contain much to commend it.”

The RCA called on diaspora Jews not to interfere with the internal Israeli legislation, noting, incorrectly, that “North American Jews have long embraced the principle that the duly elected leadership of the State of Israel should not be subject to outside interference or pressure by other governments, religious bodies, or communal entities.”

The chorus of American voices against the bill is growing, particularly in the Conservative and Reform movements, whose members make up most of American Jewry but have only a small presence in Israel. Opponents are concerned by the bill’s clause that converts will be recognized as Jews only if they “accepted the Torah and the commandments in accordance with halacha,” which could exclude some converts from being eligible to obtain Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return because they would not be considered Jews by Israel.

Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, executive vice president of the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, wrote an open letter to Netanyahu explaining why the bill will divide the Jewish community.

“The way to really ‘solve this problem’ is to have options for multiple streams and for the indigenous Israeli expressions that will only flower in a non-coercive system,” she wrote.

The Jewish Federations of North America said it supports the U.S. Senate letter opposing the Israeli bill.

“We welcome any expression of commitment from influential Jews to maintain the unity of the Jewish people and the dangers posed by this divisive legislation,” said William Daroff, vice president for public policy and director of JFNA’s Washington office.

In Washington, U.S. Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.) have signed the Wyden letter.

“I am troubled by a proposal which I believe would make it more difficult for many people who want to convert to Judaism to do so,” Levin told JTA.

The letter’s text has not been made public.

Jewish members of the U.S. House of Representatives also have expressed support for Wyden’s letter. Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), chairwoman of the State and Foreign Operations subcommittee that oversees the State Department and international programs, left a message for Netanyahu and spoke directly to Oren to voice her objection to the bill.

“Congresswoman Lowey believes Israel should continue to be a welcoming place for Jews, as it has been through its history,” said Matthew Dennis, Lowey’s spokesman. “She is concerned that this bill would alienate Jews around the world and risks weakening the sense of unity within the diaspora that is critical to Israel’s security.”

JTA