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entries tagged with: Synagogue Leadership Initiative
You’ve come a long way, baby
Embracing the difference: Former shul president April Rudin says women leaders nurture congregations
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Being a woman means bringing unique gifts to the table, says April Rudin, past president of Gesher Shalom–Jewish community Center of Fort Lee.
“We should really encourage young women to get involved” in synagogue leadership, said Rudin, suggesting that woman may “bring something more” to the role than men.
Contending that women convey a sense of “warmth and mothering, just as Golda Meir was the mother of her country,” the Fort Lee resident said that “people in general flourish under a mother’s watchful eye. We should embrace what it is that makes women different from men.”
 | April Rudin |
Rudin, who runs her own marketing firm, said woman have “an ability to empathize and to sympathize with each situation. They understand that although you have to lead, you also have to hear what the congregation is really saying.”
She recalled growing up in Detroit and working in an environment where “we did an imitation of men with our shirts and little ties. How ridiculous was that.”
Rudin said she doesn’t believe that gender is an issue in the selection of synagogue presidents, and that many women hold this position.
According to Nancy Perlman, manager of process, program, and funding development for UJA Federation of Northern New Jersey’s Synagogue Leadership Initiative, at least 15 women head synagogues in the group’s catchment area.
Breaking this down by denomination, Perlman said this figure includes three Orthodox, eight Conservative, one Reform, and one Reconstructionist, as well as one president from a non-affiliated congregation.
Rudin — who shared her one-year presidency with a male co-president — said some congregants responded more readily to her, some to her colleague.
Noting the diversity of the congregation, embracing both older and younger members, she said that “some people are unfamiliar with who the president might be, even though they see her at services or hear her voice on the phone.”
She recalls one older man insisting, “Let me speak to someone in charge, young lady!”
“That would be me,” she replied, adding that at 50 years old, she had to assure him that she, in fact, held a position of authority.
“It’s the only place I can hang out where they still call me young lady,” she joked.
While being a synagogue president is a “thankless position, where activity and effort may not always be equal to result,” Rudin said it has been important for both of her sons to see what community involvement means.
“They can walk into the shul at any time and not feel it has to be a holiday. It’s part of their everyday life,” she said.
Of course, she added, given the frequency of her late night meetings, the boys — graduates of the Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County and now attending the Abraham Joshua Heschel Day School in New York — had to forgo more than their share of hot meals during her presidency.
Rudin reflected that while her grandmother, raised in Montgomery, Ala., used to speak to her about the importance of equality between blacks and whites, her own message to future generations would probably center on women.
“What she had seen in her lifetime in terms of the progression of society was parallel to what we’ve seen with women,” she said. “We don’t want to be equal. That’s what’s changed. We want to bring our own warm personality to the position.”
You’ve come a long way, baby
The concrete ceiling
After some 23 years in Jewish communal service, Judy Beck would still encourage young women to enter the field.
“I would tell them it’s a fantastic career,” said Beck, former director of the Synagogue Leadership Initiative of UJA Federation of Northern New Jersey. “But I’d also say it’s not really a field that will lead them to a top position in an agency.”
In fact, said Beck, while she hopes that the young women she’s mentored over the years would be the leaders of the future, “I don’t know if they’ll be able to.”
“There’s a concrete ceiling,” she said. “As you look across the country, maybe two or three women head federations [in large cities].”
 | Judy Beck |
“The topic is one of my major passions,” said Beck, who has generally been a department head throughout her career.
Speculating on the reasons women are seriously underrepresented in Jewish communal leadership positions, Beck said, “I think in the past, they felt that women didn’t write the checks and men would rather deal with another man in fund-raising.”
In addition, she suggested, “The life of a Jewish communal professional is really hard — late hours, evening meetings — and so, in terms of the progress of women, a lot of it may be the issue of managing work and family.”
But, she added, when she discussed this issue with colleagues several years ago, “some people brought up the fact that young men have these issues too but it doesn’t seem to impede their progress.”
It’s not fair in terms of “an excuse,” she said, but it may be that women simply don’t want to make the decision to spend so much time away from their children.
“It goes back to the fact that some of the precepts of the women’s movement were not necessarily realistic,” she said. “Somebody has to be home to take care of the kids.”
However, she added, “it also has to do with sequencing. A young mom might not be so interested, but at a certain point, she’s in a position to do it.”
Beck recalled that when she first entered the field, she went to an orientation where all of the executives at the dais were men and all the new people coming into the field were women.
“It hasn’t changed much,” she said, noting that many people working in the field are women while those in positions of power tend to be men.
Beck said she doesn’t think anyone is spearheading an effort to change this right now, adding that the move for change seem to have peaked several years ago. She pointed out that some women do head smaller constituent agencies, such as Jewish Family Service, while others serve as synagogue presidents (see Women’s work).
Nevertheless, “those of us who have really fought the battles see that nothing much has changed in certain areas,” she said.
Summer Tot Shabbat Hop aims at attracting young families
Congregations coordinate kid-friendly services
 | PJ Library volunteer Eva Jakob reads to children. courtesy PJ Library |
Tot Shabbat services during the year are generally well attended, but for that reason alone they may not appeal to unaffiliated young families. Also, these families do not often get an opportunity to sample such events at various synagogues to give them a chance to find their comfort zones.
Linda Ripps, coordinator of The PJ Library, found a way to change that.
“Each week during the summer, a different congregation will host a Tot Shabbat, or celebration of the Sabbath, for families with children up to six years old,” said Ripps, the driving force behind the community’s Tot Shabbat Hopping program.
The PJ Library and Shalom Baby sponsor the initiative, which began on July 1 at the Jewish Community Center of Paramus. The synagogue welcomed some 35 people to its Tot Shabbat service – most of them first-timers. According to the congregation’s rabbi, Arthur Weiner, it was an extremely successful evening.
“The event was about breaking barriers and forming relationships that will help young families find their way to Jewish organizations and especially synagogues,” he said. “The PJ Library has the most extensive contacts with young families. The cooperation between the [library] and the synagogues is the proper model for engaging them.”
The PJ Library was created by the Harold Grinspoon Foundation and is administered in our area by the Kehillah Partnership. It is a Jewish literacy program that sends free Jewish-themed books and CDs to families with children between the ages of 6 months and 5½ years. In Bergen County, approximately 2,000 children receive books from the program.
Ripps first heard about the Tot Shabbat Hopping program from a colleague in Austin, Texas. Later, she reached out to Shalom Baby coordinator Nancy Bach, suggesting that the two work together to bring the program to Bergen County.
An outreach program of the Synagogue Leadership Initiative of the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey, Shalom Baby welcomes parents and their newborns or newly adopted children into the Jewish community.
Ripps believed the summer would be the ideal time to launch the program, despite the fact that many families go on vacation during July and August.
| Tot Shabbat Hopping summer schedule |
Friday, July 15, 5:30 p.m. – 6:15 p.m. Saturday, July 16, 10:30 a.m. Friday, July 22, 6 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. Friday, July 29, 6:15 p.m. Saturday, July 30, 9:30 a.m. Friday, August 5, 6 p.m. Friday, August 12, 6:30 p.m. Saturday, August 13, 10:45 a.m. Friday, August 19, 6 p.m. Saturday, August 27, 11 a.m. |
“Many others remain at home,” she said. In addition, Tot Shabbat programs held during the school year are likely to be well-attended by synagogue members, “and that might be overwhelming to newcomers.”
“This is for families who are not yet connected,” she said. “They face a whole lot of barriers. They don’t know anyone; they may not know how to dress or understand what Tot Shabbat is.”
Ripps said her many years working in the Jewish community taught her that “even the most welcoming synagogues do not see themselves through a newcomer’s eyes.” But if you say, for example, that The PJ Library “will be there and we can go together, there’s strength in numbers,” she said.
Reaching their target audience was a challenge, said Ripps, noting that she and her group’s outreach coordinator, Abby Leipsner, sent e-mails to congregational rabbis and presidents, as well as to synagogue executive directors, preschool directors, educational directors, and membership chairs.
“We expected two to four responses,” she said about the quest for congregations willing to host summer Tot Shabbat programs. Instead, she heard back from 12 congregations and “found a way to include them all.”
The next challenge was “to spread the word to those least connected to the community,” she said. This was accomplished through organizational newsletters, Facebook and Meetup pages, and a variety of websites targeting young families.
“We didn’t know who would come,” said Ripps, “but we agreed we’d be satisfied if [every congregation] had one new family.”
Organizers stressed the importance of user-friendly signage as well as personal greeters. Synagogues were also prompted to provide attendees with handouts listing each synagogue’s family-friendly activities.
“We also decided to have a staff person at every program to welcome people on behalf of Shalom Baby and PJ Library and encourage [attendees] to stay and meet each other,” said Ripps.
“Everything we do is toward building community,” she noted.
Equally important, “We want to give young families a chance to try on the different personas of our varied congregations,” she said, pointing out that participating synagogues include eight Conservative synagogues, “ranging from liberal to not so liberal,” and four Reform synagogues. “They’re all over the map geographically,” she said.
Parents will be asked to evaluate each program, and the PJ Library will provide the names of local families to participating synagogues so they can send them invitations to future events or put them on the congregational mailing list.
Ripps noted that while this is a pilot program, several congregations that are not part of the summer program have already expressed interest in hosting programs in the Fall.
Rabbi Sharon Litwin, associate rabbi of Temple Israel and Jewish Community Center in Ridgewood, welcomed about 40 people to the shul’s Tot Shabbat program on July 9.
“There were 12 families, including babies and children up to age 8, and parents and grandparents,” she said. Of these, six people had previously attended the program.
“The program is a great idea,” said Litwin. “It gives young families a chance to connect Jewishly during the summer when most shuls stop any kind of children’s programming. It opens the doors to people who may not walk into a shul until their child is ready for religious school, and it allows for like-minded young families to meet each other and, hopefully, make friends within the community.”
For more information about Tot Shabbat Hopping, Shalom Baby, or The PJ Library, contact Nancy Bach, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), (201) 820-3900, ext. 320; or Linda Ripps, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or (201) 666-6610, ext. 381. To enroll children in The PJ Library, visit www.pjlibrary.org.
Generation map
Sociological theory offers lens for synagogue renewal
Who are the people in your synagogue?
Perhaps more important, who are the people not in your synagogue?
One way to answer those questions is to divide the population into groups. According to one school of sociology, the best form of grouping is by year of birth. Because they share formative experiences, the theory goes, generations share recognizable characteristics.
 | Arlene Holtz discusses generational theory as it relates to synagogue life, Monday evening at JFNNJ. Courtesy Arlene Holtz |
“There are four adult generations at the table,” says Lisa Harris Glass, director of the Synagogue Leadership Initiative. “Each is so unique. How do we as synagogues address their needs?”
This question will be the topic of a program Monday night, Sept. 12, put on by the synagogue initiative, which is a program of the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey and the Henry and Marilyn Taub Foundation.
“Our whole programmatic push this year is about meeting people where they live and understanding their differences,” said Glass.
Presenting on the generations will be Arlene Holtz, a retired middle school principal who works with Philadelphia’s Jewish education agency. She learned about generational theory while researching a seminar on the American Jewish family. “I came to see that there are currently — for the first time — four generations alive and members of synagogues,” she said.
The oldest generation, she said, is “The Silent Generation.”
“These are the grandparents, people who were alive during the War,” she said referring to World War II.
| Larry Yudelson
What: Table for Four. A Synagogue Leadership Initiative workshop for synagogue leaders, lay and professional, to learn what makes each generation tick, what they want/need/like, and how to serve them. Where: Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey, 50 Eisenhower Drive, Paramus When: Monday, Sept. 12 at 6:30 p.m. |
Then there are the “Baby Boomers” — born from 1946 to 1964; “Generation X,” born 1965 to 1979; and the “Millenials,” born from 1981 to 2000, the oldest of whom are just turning 30.
“Understanding who these four generations are gives a different lens, a different way of looking and seeing who the people are who are in our synagogues, and who are not in our synagogues,” she said.
Holtz said that synagogues are not made up of people “in a big whole. There’s different kinds of people. Programming that might appeal to Boomers might not appeal to Millenials and vice versa.
“For example, Xers and Millenials are much less interested in formal institutional affiliation and worship. They do identify strongly as being Jews, but are much more interested in informal, non-institutional kinds of worship. A challenge is to understand what is it they’re looking for. How do we hold on to the Silent Generation and Boomers who are still members of our synagogues, and also create programing attractive to the Xers and Millenials,” she said.
Holtz said that the preferences of the younger generations are not simply a reflection of their youth. “When a Millenial ‘grows up’ and becomes 45, 50 years old, they won’t become like the Boomers. I’m a Boomer. As I grow older, I’m not growing into becoming who my parents were. I continue to have my Boomer identity with me throughout my life. So the chances are that Xers aren’t going to ‘grow up’ and change.”
She said that in her Philadelphia synagogue, the impact of the post-Baby Boom generations can be seen in a “multi-age alternative service that started out in the basement. So many people have come to the alternative service that it has moved to the main sanctuary. What the Boomers and Silent Generation may have loved in terms of the beautiful High Holy Days worship service, maybe the younger people are more attracted to a much less formal service, where the choir is not trained voices, but of anyone who wants to sing, and the accompaniment is of everyone who wants to play an instrument, and they don’t care if the kids are running down the aisles.
“What I think is key, is to ensure that each of these generations is represented on the synagogue’s ritual practice committee. It needs to have Millenial and Xer voices. That’s the challenge. If you don’t have the Millenial and Xer voices represented, how are you going to have the programming that attracts and engages them?
“You can’t go so far into the other side that you lose the older members of the synagogue. They’re crucial too. Everyone counts. Everyone matters.”
She described a hypothetical example of a synagogue which surveyed members about Friday night services. On the whole, a majority liked them as they were. If the results were to be broken down according to generations, however, they would reveal that the Millenials uniformally hated the choir.
“That’s the strength of using this kind of lens in thinking about a synagogue,” she said. “The challenge is how do we keep our synagogues vibrant for all our generations.”