Translating Text Through Context

By Guest Blogger, Jed Filler

I still remember my first computer in 8th grade – called the vic20. It had 24k of ram and games and programming loaded from cartridges. I was amazed when my father brought home an IBM PC – with two floppy drives and 128k of onboard memory when I was in high school. There were hundreds of programs on one floppy – and you had to learn an actual language to use some of the programs. I helped him and learned about spreadsheets when he built an inventory program for his business (anyone remember 123?). Computers shrunk in size and increased in capacity at a furious rate – so that when I went to college –a few students on every floor had one. By the time I graduated four years later, many more students had one.

Why the trip down memory lane? Because shortly after graduating college, I started my career in Jewish education working in my home synagogue as a teacher. They were using textbooks that 12 years earlier I had used, and the only computer was in the synagogue office. We were still using a mimeo machine (remember the smell of a fresh ‘copy’)?

I went to a graduate program to study Jewish education, and my fellow students and I were determined to bring Jewish education up to date. While deeply respecting our own mentors and teachers, we knew instinctively that in order to learn most effectively, a student has to learn in a context that makes sense to them.

But this is nothing new. In our uniquely American experience, it seems that Jewish education has lagged anywhere between five and twenty years behind secular education in theory, application, and technique. Each new generation of Jewish educators work diligently to catch up, and over the past 10 years have made significant strides in closing the gap.

Even now as I write this, Jewish education students in graduate programs are doing what we did – working to make the text relevant, both in context and delivery method, for our current generation of learners.

Jvillage Network, Behrman House, Darim Online, our movements, and many other organizations are working to help educators create contextual connections between our texts and our learners.

When our kids speak through technology, so must we. Twitter, Facebook, blogs, foursquare, second life, skype, and texting occupy both their school and spare time, and we ignore their context at our peril.

We can't wait for students to come to us. When we do, we are relegated to the fate of the dinosaurs. Our tradition is rich, enlightening, fulfilling, and absolutely relevant - but requires constant translation updates to keep it so.

Pirke Avot reminds us that we are not required to finish the work, but we are not permitted to leave it for others either. Our students fill our classrooms today, and they cannot wait for the next generation of education professionals. That doesn't mean that we should wait for them to get into the field to catch up!

The blending of all the parts of our lives together in a mashup of content and context is gaining momentum. We must work to continue to grow in knowledge and expertise - in content, context and delivery methods to be as effective as possible in our classrooms.

In my next blog - I'll take a look at some of the ways that Jewish educators around the country, and world, are integrating technology in their classrooms - bringing our texts alive for another generation.

Kol Tuv

-Jed

Jed Filler is the Education Director of Congregation Shirat Hayam in Swampscott, MA

Upgrade Your School's Technology

Guest Blogger Terry Kaye

Jewish educators are frustrated when they can’t afford to buy new laptops, a projector, carts, and other computer hardware and software for the school. How can they close the digital gap between home and school when they have no money to do so?
Here are three ways to boost your school’s budget so that you can upgrade your technology.

1.       Ask an angel.

The most successful fund raisers are those who ask their personal contacts for support. Approach the people with whom you work most closely, who believe in your mission, and who want to see you and your organization succeed. That may be a parent, grandparent, congregation member, or board member.
For example, an educator in Boston got a $50,000 grant from a member of the congregation to build a technology infrastructure (hardware, software, blog, social media). Key to the grant is that the new technology serve as a connection point for families throughout the congregation, especially in the pre-school where parents are eager to be part of their children’s school lives even while at work.

2.       Hold fundraisers.

Fundraisers can be lucrative, especially if centered around a holiday. For example, at Passover, buy haggadot at a discount and resell them to families, sell Passover candy, or offer wine or flowers for the seder table. At Purim, ask for donated items to raffle at your Purim carnival; at Hanukkah, sell gift wrap or create a school cookbook and sell it to religious school families or the congregation at large. And don’t forget the dependable bookfair, which not only raises money for the school, but helps families build a Jewish library.

A school in Greenfield, Massachussetts holds ongoing fundraising programs in which members and non-members can help raise funds by buying organic coffee and by bringing in empty ink jet cartridges and old cell phones.  (This company runs a recycling fundraising program.)  A school in Portland, Maine invites members to the synagogue kitchen to bake honey cakes, then sells the cakes as a Rosh Hashanah fundraiser. 

A few other ideas: If your synagogue holds bingo or card games to raise money, have a school-sponsored night, where you invite your parent body and the proceeds go to the school. Hold a raffle with tech prizes such as 1st prize: an iPad, 2nd prize: an iPod, 3rd prize: a good set of computer speakers or headphones. Consider adding a Technology Fund to the other synagogue funds to which members can contribute (like the rabbi’s discretionary fund, the prayer book fund, and the yahrzeit fund).

3.       Approach other departments in your synagogue.

Let the school committee, Men’s Club, or Women’s Club know thatyou need to upgrade your technology. Do your homework, then make a presentation to them. Present a plan that includes the hardware and software you want to buy, prices, and how you plan to use technology to further your educational goals. For example, you may want to expand student learning time into the home by using a Hebrew series with a digital companion at each level. Make the case that you need to take the school over to the right side of the digital divide.  

As an example, this strategy worked effectively in another programming area in a school in Bergen County, New Jersey. In that case, the educator wanted to build a new K-2 family prayer service. She saw a colorful family prayer book as the key to creating a successful program. She had no money in her budget to make the purchase. So she approached her school committee. Two members wrote out a check on the spot, enabling her to buy 110 copies of the siddur.

The same can happen to you. Just ask.

Contact me if you need help choosing the right computer hardware and software for your school.

Terry Kaye is Vice President and Director of Behrman House Consulting Group, whose ten specialists help Jewish communal organizations flourish. Terry is a leading authority on traditional and innovative Jewish educational practices in North America. She provides curriculum consultation and builds teacher success programs for hundreds of educators each year.
Reprinted with permission from Behrman House.

The Heart of Your Community

If we think about the synagogue as a human body, I believe that the heart of its life is the religious school, with its vibrancy of children and parents.  And the board of the synagogue, well... I will let you decide on that body part. Yet my view of reality has the religious school as a structural attachment, or maybe a detachment.  Many times there is a void between the board of the synagogue and the religious school.  At times they can feel like two distinct organizations.  

Synagogues need to restructure themselves with the school at their core.

Just take a look at the non-Jewish communities we live in.  Whether it is an urban or rural community, the vibrant heart is the community that grows around and out of the schools.  Unfortunately, for many synagogue boards of directors, lay leadership kicks up at a time when individuals are very removed from the connection of school life.  And today that disconnect is greater as our children and young parents are ever more connected in ways that we do not relate to.  

We have become our parents.

Creative energy is the spark of life.  Creative energy comes from our youth and those directly connected to them, parents and teachers.  Congregational religious schools are the number-one providers of Jewish education, outside the home.  We as parents need our religious schools to broaden and deepen what we are teaching our children at home.  Today this is more and more challenging for the schools, as they face the challenge of transitioning from outdated teaching models to an ever-increasing digital structure, from "Hebrew education" to Jewish education--all at a time when there are challenging economic realities impacting synagogue life as a whole.

There are a number of organizations deeply involved in improving our Jewish education for children.  All the movements understand the importance of educating our children, whether they attend one day of religious school or six.  But the biggest transition we can make is in our own communities, and the importance we place on educating our children.  The movements and others can provide more structure, more training, better curricula--but what they can not provide is local community leadership that can reconnect the synagogue and the religious school and, more specifically, reconnect the importance of educating our children with the board of the synagogue.

Look at your synagogue board.  How many board members are parents of children in your school?  Does the educational director come to every board meeting?  Does a religious school committee member have a leadership position on the board's executive committee?  Our children are the future.  Is your board structured in a way that ensures the success of our children's education?

What Color Conveys

Studies have shown that color is has greater influence than anything you might say.  Or put another way, the right colors increase the effectiveness of your message.  In 2011, with the world in total chaos, the colors that you use for your website are more important than ever.  Color provides your viewers with a specific interpretation of your values.  Color sets the overview of who you are.

The overall use of color is an opportunity to reflect your values, here is a chart which matches colors to values:

White: balance, honesty, simplicity, serenity, thrift
Black: affluence, attitude, cool, prestige, subversion
Blue: health, prevention, responsibility, serenity, wellness
Red: comfort, identity, indulgence, moxie, personalization
Purple: courage, curiosity, nonconformity, spirituality, status
Green: balance, freshness, legacy, vitality, youth
Brown: comfort, environmentalism, security, trust
Orange: ambition, collaboration, energy, relationship, sharing
Yellow: happiness, passion, style, vitality

The opportunity for your website is to use color that reinforces your values, while using spot color to cue action items.

The Digital Gap: Jewish Household and Educational Technology Use

by David Behrman

We’ve learned from Garrison Keillor that in the town of Lake Wobegon 90 percent of the children are above average.  How great for them.  But when we apply technology to education, the Jewish community is on the wrong side of the tracks: the rest of the world is far ahead of us. Far more than half of us are below average.

A recent Behrman House survey of the parents of religious school students revealed that almost all have high-speed internet access, and three-quarters use it for at least some secular educational purpose.  On the other hand, even the most successful Hebrew training software is adopted in fewer than 40 percent of the schools where it could be used; the digital content of religious education overall is even lower.

How can this be?  Has our identity as “the people of the book” blinded us to the advantages of technology?  But that can’t be—we revel in the percentage of Nobel Prizes we’ve achieved. And we compete—successfully—throughout the secular world.  Do we think that technology doesn’t advance our purposes?  That can’t be it either—we know that our children learn, make friends, form communities, and affiliate with like-minded people using technological tools that weren’t even dreamed of when we were their age.
Despite this, we check our technology—our innovation—at the door when it comes to educating our children in our religion and heritage.  And it comes at a cost.

The cost is the compromise of Jewish religious education, in two ways: Most obviously, we fail to use many powerful tools and technologies.  Online video, blogs and posting software, smart phones, games, and more—are all ways to engage children and to provide meaningful and enduring experiences, not to mention connections with the rest of the Jewish community.

Equally importantly we send a message: that the latest technologies—the ones our kids find so compelling—aren’t right for the Jewish world.  Either they’re irrelevant, we say by ignoring them, or the enterprise of Judaism isn’t important enough for us to use them.  Neither one is true, of course, but that’s what we say, every time we send out a sloppy black-and-white photocopy instead of a full color brochure, every time we fail to send our kids to the web for the kind of learning we want them to have.

So what to do?  First we need to understand why it’s happening—why technological innovation within the Jewish community has lagged.  Why there’s a Digital Gap.   Then we must close the gap.

How?  We’re working on ways.  Join me in the discussion.

David Behrman is President and Publisher of Behrman House, which has pioneered the use of online Hebrew instruction in the religious school environment. This Fall Behrman House released its Online Learning Center to further bring digital instruction to the educational community.

A Chanukah Challenge

By Rabbi Herbert N. Schwartz
Guest Blogger

What makes Chanukah different this year from other years?

While Chanukah differentiates us from the larger community, it is also usually in accord with the religious culture of the larger community. This year, with Chanukah starting more than two weeks before Christmas, what we usually call the “Festival of Lights” and the “Festival of Freedom” can also remind us of the “Dignity of Difference.” These words are also the title of the book by Jonathan Sacks, and are his way of making a “forceful plea for tolerance in an age of extremism.”

He goes on to emphasize the thesis that “if we are to save ourselves from mutual destruction,” we must recognize that “fundamentalism, like imperialism, is the attempt to impose a single way of life on a plural world.” 

Typically, Chanukah gives us Jews an opportunity to celebrate our uniqueness and honor the Maccabees who fought to observe their covenant with God. However, cherishing the freedom to be who we are needs not exclude the possibility that other peoples, cultures, and faiths that have also had to find their own relationship with God.

Might this not be a good time to learn about other faiths and their struggles to be who they are?

There are some people who would say that the State of Israel stands between two eras: the tribal cultures and local deities of the ancient world and the more universal cultures of the Greeks and Romans. From the perspective of the latter, particularity was viewed as a source of conflict, whereas universality was seen as the realm of truth, justice, and peace. In his book, Sacks attacks this thinking, arguing that universality is an inadequate response to tribalism, that “it leads to the belief--superficially compelling but quite false—that there is only one truth about the essentials of the human condition, and it holds for all peoples and all times. If am right, you are wrong. If what I believe is the truth, than your belief, that differs from mine, must be an error from which you must be converted, cured and saved.”

Might this not be a good time to talk about what is gained (and lost) by having multiple faiths and cultures and Nation states?

How else might we celebrate our dignity of difference this Chanukah?

• Look back in our own history and see other times when Jews refused to let go of Judaism
• Ask community members to tell one another what gives them most pride in being Jewish
• Designate a public area in the synagogue where congregants can write down what matters most about being Jewish today
• Consider how we all benefit from learning about each other’s differences even as we celebrate our particularities
  
  

Finally, let’s use the eight days of Chanukah this year as a time of revisiting what we want to make ourselves as well. What do we hope for? Aspire to? What are we willing to work for? There is so much “talk” that rarely happens during Chanukah. With two weeks separating the Festival of Freedom from the Christmas holiday, isn’t this the year for it?

What is Pinterest

Pinterest is a Virtual Pinboard.

Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.

Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.    

You can have your synagogue start a Pinterest of its own.  Today, being Black Friday, we'd like to share one of our Jvillage Pinterest boards, this one dedicated to Hanukkah:

Our Happy Hanukkah Board

Happy Thanksgiving

Enjoy your holiday.

Innovation in Education Requires Risk

Generating Innovation within Jewish Education Demands a Tolerance for Risk

by David Waksberg

The children of Israel are poised to enter the Promised Land. After generations of slavery in Egypt and then a sojourn through desert wilderness, one would think the bar wouldn't be all that high for Canaan to look good. And indeed, twelve scouts return from a 40 day “feasibility study” and report a land flowing with milk and honey.
Yet the scouts also report risks – powerful giants already inhabiting the land. Most of the scouts and their “clients” are risk-averse. They consider returning to Egypt rather than risk the unknown. Only Caleb and Joshua are bullish – their optimism is rewarded with the threat of a stoning.

The story in Shelach Lecha resonates for anyone in the business of innovation. Any new venture has rewards and risks. When the rewards are obvious and the risks trivial – no great courage or faith are required. The greater the potential risk, the more difficult the decision to proceed. It is easier to say no, easier to stick with the status quo.
For our communities to succeed and thrive, we need more Joshuas and Calebs. How can we cultivate that kind of courage among Jewish leaders?

Fruitful innovation involves the will and capacity to experiment and take risks. Risk-taking involves failure. Investing in innovation involves investing in risk, and with it, tolerance for failure. Working to improve Jewish education is no exception. If we are to realize gains in the field – engaging more students in meaningful learning and building the next generation of Jewish leaders – we need to invest in risk, understanding we will occasionally fail. Indeed, with strong leadership, vision, knowledge management, and communication, we can often learn as much from failure as from success.

Despite growing interest in “venture philanthropy,” much Jewish philanthropy discourages risk-taking and contributes to risk-averse behavior among Jewish leaders. If we want to encourage innovation in Jewish education, there are some strategies philanthropists and central agencies can follow.

How Can We Invest in Experimentation?

• Fund groups as well as projects. We have witnessed a growing trend in which philanthropic dollars flow more to projects than to institutions. This is understandable – it is the program’s outcomes, not the institution executing it, that compel the funding. The flaw in this strategy is that it inhibits agility, creativity, and the flexibility to make dynamic decisions – all important contributors to successful innovators. For example, as a CEO of a multi-million dollar agency, almost all my funding is tied to specific projects (often with three-year funding cycles). If an idea comes up, if a need emerges – our ability to respond to that need, to seize that idea or opportunity, is limited. Whether it is a startup or an established institution, if there is confidence in the people, it behooves us to invest in their ability to make good decisions.
  
  
• Support infrastructure. Support systems, administration and marketing rarely attract philanthropic dollars and are often underfunded. While understandable, if taken in the extreme, it contributes to scenarios in which institutions are incapable of succeeding because the scaffolding required to support an innovative endeavor has been starved and the project itself is ill-equipped to succeed on its own. Supervision/coaching/mentoring, outcome-oriented planning and evaluation, and marketing/communications are sound practices and innovation-friendly support beams that help organizations manage and mitigate risk.
  
  
• Embrace failure. Of course we want to make smart bets, but don’t punish risk-takers if every bet doesn’t pan out. An innovation-friendly funding environment encourages reasonable risks (that occasionally fail) and practices that enable practitioners and funders to learn from those failures.
  
  
• Give innovation time to succeed. In the non-profit world, sustainability is a key indicator of success. However, in contrast with the private sector, it is not the only or even the most salient indicator of success. While the seeding approach does indeed cultivate innovation, this model should be examined carefully as many innovations may require more than three years before they are sustainable without institutional philanthropic support. And some great ideas will always require community support – that in itself does not make them unsustainable. This is especially important in education, where it may take several years before we truly understand innovation’s payoff.
  
  

In San Francisco, we embarked on several new innovative initiatives in Jewish education; fortunately, we were blessed with visionary “venture” funders. Promoting innovation in part-time Jewish education, the Partnership for Effective Learning and Innovative Education (PELIE) has partnered with us and other communities – seeding local efforts with matching funding and expertise. PELIE is no pushover – they push us to optimize success, but they encourage risks and tolerate “good” mistakes, so long as they are in the service of innovation and we learn from them.

Other funders, including the Jim Joseph Foundation, the SF-based Jewish Community Federation, the Koret Foundation and the Goldman Fund have similarly embraced a venture approach, enabling educators to “re-imagine” approaches to Israel education and inclusion.

Philanthropists and central agencies can be partners who nurture innovation in Jewish education. Educators must navigate the risks of innovation. Central agencies (BJEs) can provide expertise and philanthropists can provide resources. Both can help manage risk.

If we want to cultivate the spirit of Joshua and Caleb in Jewish education, we need to nurture and reward that intrepid spirit that lies at the heart of innovation.

David Waksberg is the executive director of the Bureau of Jewish Education in San Francisco.
This article originally appeared on June 24, 2011 on eJewish Philanthropy. Reprinted with permission.

Board Responsibility

Boards are a critical pillar of your synagogue's future, at the very center of your community’s success. Active Board members are the leaders that will get you to tomorrow. Yet most Boards do not see that one of their key tasks is to recruit qualified candidates. Most synagogues are struggling with the same issues-- issues that keep them in the weeds.

There is no doubt we have come a long way. I recall my first synagogue board meeting almost twenty years ago, and the issue of the day was deciding who should have keys to the shul. I thought I had entered another universe. Over the past twenty years, the focus of Boards has changed, but by and large they are still mired in the details of keys instead of focusing on the bigger blueprint they need to create for the future.

Synagogue communities need to take responsibility for the way they look at leadership in their communities. Yes, the rabbi, the executive director, and the educator are all key positions of potential leadership. And they work for your Board.  

Most communities are just thankful that someone is stepping up to be on the Board at all. Yet few members of the community are connecting the dots by realizing that with Board membership come responsibilities for setting the course for the future.  

Where is your synagogue's course set for?  If you are not sure, maybe it is time to get involved and be part of a Board with a strategic compass pointing towards the future.

by Yoram Samets

Boomers in the Digital Age

If yours is like most synagogues, many of the active members are in the Boomer age segment. And did you know that the gap in digital usage between teens and Boomers is shrinking? In other words, your Boomer members are using all the digital tools--just like your teen members. In fact, Facebook now ranks as the 3rd most popular website among internet users ages 65 and up.
The following technology-related Boomer facts come courtesy of Jeffrey Cole, of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

- Social networks are of great value to Boomers, their primary use being both educational and the sharing of information. A synagogue should consider being a great portal to all things Jewish and Israel-related for these members. Teens, on the other hand, use social networks as a way to hang out with other teens.

- Boomers are the biggest users of email, while teens are texting. Are you emails linked to your website? Are you writing emails that create interest for readers to link to your website?

- Boomers spend more money than any other group--and they make their purchases online. This is a great opportunity to open shopping to your members. But just having an online marketplace does not guarantee it will work for your synagogue. Find a member with a retail background and see if they would be interested in opening and managing an online store for you. With a member's commitment and focus on merchandising and promoting, your synagogue could earn substantial revenue from hosting an online Jewish “mall.”

- Boomers are still the heaviest users of print. And as newspapers and magazines get displaced, synagogues have an opportunity to get boomers to get their Jews news and information from you on their tablets.

- While teens spend most of their time on Facebook, Boomers are reaching out to a wider and more varied network. They read something they are interested in and will look up the subject online to learn more. The more you can cater to the Boomer members’ content needs, the more they will value your site and being a member of the congregation.

How are you creating new value for your Boomer members online?

Ask “Who is a Jew?” Rather Than “What is a Jew?”

Over the past several decades, or actually the past several centuries, Jewish leadership has been in a constant push-pull struggle around the issue of “Who is a Jew.” I am in no position to define this for anyone but myself, but each day, as I study and learn, my answer to this ongoing question assumes different dimensions.

The context for this question is less important than the content, or “What is a Jew?” And, the content needs to be in passionate support of purpose.

For Jewish organizations, especially synagogues, ambivalence is the battle we are fighting, and in many cases losing. Congregational and organizational memberships have fluctuated dramatically, but in the end we have seen a continued decline in participation and membership.

Jewish organizations and synagogues have always had active membership outreach. We have seen them move from personal and social outreach efforts to organized marketing efforts. Synagogues and others have been forced to seek new members much like Proctor & Gamble searches for new customers.

Today, synagogues are still playing catch-up in the marketing game. And as synagogues and many other Jewish organizations put more and more effort into marketing, attempting to emulate successful products and services we see everyday, it is important to remember that most marketing efforts fail. Increasing membership outreach efforts is critical, but not necessarily a guarantor for success.

There are two examples of organizational growth that I believe explain or at least indicate what we need to be doing for greater success in our local and national efforts. In many ways, Chabad and AIPAC have replicable outreach, retention and growth strategies (at least from the outside looking in)--and at the core of their successes are their purposes.

Each of these organizations has one very clear purpose, one that enables professional staffs and members to be aligned. Success for an organization starts with a clear purpose, one that needs to be reinforced everyday with defined and sustainable content, information, learning, and programming, and one that resonates in the hearts of all of its members.

Compare AIPAC to ADL, or Chabad to the Conservative movement. Clear, heartfelt purpose (AIPAC, Chabad) compared to heartfelt purpose confusion (ADL, Conservative movement.)

Imagine if these were retail stores and you were walking by their windows. It is as if one is the department store and one is the specialty store. If you were looking for that special item, which store would you enter?

What is your organization’s purpose? And is everything the organization does in alignment to reinforce that purpose? Until you have clarity of purpose from one end of your organization through the other, much of your membership outreach efforts will be wasteful.

“Who is a Jew?” is an argument that will never end. But declare what your Jewish purpose is, and then lead and support your organization to success through it.

Rebuilding the Temple

A New York Times article from December 2, 2010, Small-City Congregations Try to Preserve Rituals of Jewish Life, has spurred conversations about the future of small Jewish communities, and it stirred deep memories in me.

I came to America from Israel as a young boy.  My family settled in a small upstate New York community and we were one of 75 Jewish families there.  

Over the past five decades I have witnessed the end of Jewish community life in this town, and in many of the smaller communities throughout the Northeast.  

And so while I appreciate the need to be proactively planning for the end of a community, I believe our focus needs to be on enhancing the passionate core within our existing communities, to avoid the further passing of others.

The danger for all of us is not seeing that what is happening in Loredo, Texas is also happening in Boston and every other community in America. We who care about Jewish community must be much more intentional about its future.  

In general terms, being Jewish has shifted from a religion to a culture during the past 100 years.  And at a time when there are fewer Jews in America as a percentage of the overall population, our Jewish culture continues to assimilate into and merge with the American culture.  That is a bleak trend for Jewish community and continuity.

The freedom we have come to love and expect in America is creating a new Jewish world of the future.  The model with which we have been operating for the past 50 years needs to dramatically shift to lead us into new times.  

Today we live in an overly segmented Jewish America. There are multiple Orthodox denominations, for example, and then the rest of us are also severely segmented by organized movements – Conservative, Reform, Humanistic, Reconstructionist, Renewal, etc.  

To be a thriving Jewish community of the future we need to remove the labels and be Jews. Our young people are living through an American Jewish lens, not the segmented lens embraced by movement leaders.

The thriving Jewish communities are those that embrace, celebrate, honor and include our differences.  I haven’t been in a Reform synagogue that isn’t embracing more tradition. I haven’t been in a Conservative synagogue that isn’t embracing less tradition.  As Jewish survivalists, we must understand the need for change.  

One of the key Jewish influences, holder of the culture, educator of our people, is Google. It is the temple of the future.  

Google provides us with the biggest window into Judaism. And so the imperative on the local level is for our Jewish organizations to become the portal for their members’ Jewish perspective.  Google informs our Judaism, but it does not create community.  

At the local level we must fully create community, collaboration, connection, and communication.  These are the “4 C’s” for the future of American Judaism.  

The New York Times article is a warning to us all.  Is this about tomorrow?  There are endless efforts by leaders of national Jewish organizations to think and act for the future of the American Jew.  Yet the solutions lie at the local level.  

Our local leaders need to embrace the new normal, the world of bricks and mortar combined with the online world. We can no longer be bystanders while the biggest shift to our culture takes place.

by Yoram Samets, CEO Jvillage Network

Synagogue Shopping

Shopping for a synagogue is no different than shopping for the best restaurant in town, or shopping for that new vest.  We “shop” for a synagogue when we are new to an area and/or when we are looking for information and resources about holidays, religious school, life cycle events, etc. Synagogue shopping happens everyday. And even once they have chosen a synagogue, members continue to “shop” when they visit your synagogue’s website. Does your site affirm their decision to have joined? Is it engaging? Does it provide members a diverse array of opportunities to increase their involvement?

Here is an interesting exercise for you or your website committee: go synagogue shopping.  If you are on the West coast, go to Google and search for synagogues in Hartford, Connecticut. If you live in the great middle of our country, check out a handful of synagogues in the Boston area. And if you are on the Eastern shores, head for Phoenix or Los Angeles.

Pay close attention to the aesthetics and the content of each synagogue website you “visit.” Which elements are most and least compelling? Compiling and comparing responses among other members of your community can help you better orient your website towards the discerning shopper.  

For more information on how to market your synagogue, listen to all four podcasts of marketing professional Jonathan Schreiber’s seminar, Market Yourself to Success: The Synagogue Shopping Cycle.

Shabbat Attendance is Not One of the Ten Commandments

When we ask synagogue leadership why Shabbat attendance is low, or why holiday attendance is low (outside the two major holidays of Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur), we always hear the same.  In a nut shell: the problem is out there, not in here. Shabbat morning services compete with soccer practice, symphony practice, sleeping practice, or shopping practice. In essence, the ”out there problem” is that many Jews value these things more than attending services. As synagogue leaders, we need to focus on increasing the value of services and the benefits of coming to a synagogue. In a chaotic world, many Jews are looking for connectedness, spiritual well-being, and more family time. Synagogue and services have many elements that could help members meet these needs - but first we need to provide the kinds of information, learning, and benefits that members can grow with. 

This may not an easy journey--but it is possible.

Shabbat is the central holy day for Jews, and we need to pay more attention to increasing its meaning, value and benefits to our members. We no longer live in a world where what the Rabbis tell us to do.  Participating in Shabbat needs to come from creating a valuable service to your community. If Shabbat does not benefit your member, the member will not show up.

The first suggestion I would make is that rabbis have to stop thinking that Shabbat is one of the ten commandments. Consider having your rabbi(s) and appropriate community leadership set up a one-year task group to focus on increasing participation, and experiment to find out what will work best for your community.  

Here are some basic ideas:

• conduct an on-line survey to learn more about your congregants wants and needs for Shabbat services
• define the key benefits to participation in general, i.e. “What is in it for me?”
• define the key benefits of each upcoming Shabbat or holiday service, i.e. don’t assume your members know what Sukkot means, or what to do on Sukkot
• create at least monthly special Shabbats for various segments of the congregation, especially religious school participation and families with young children
• don’t be afraid to hold two different services simultaneously, combining afterwards for a community Shabbat lunch
  
  

These ideas are not new.  And yet we get so in the weeds about our religious services that we forget to look around us and see all the Jews we are leaving out. You may already be doing more than you realize to promote connectedness, participation, and member engagement with Shabbat and other holidays. Just remember: you need to communicate the benefits in order to see increased meaning and participation.  

What are you currently doing to make Shabbat services feel inviting and relevant to broader segments of your congregation?