Congregations

Congregation Consulting and Resources

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 12:43:06 -0500

Welcome to the Department of Congregational Consulting and Resources. Our mission is to provide programs, consultation and resources rooted in a Reconstructionist, Jewish values-based approach for member communities of JRF, and to help our member communities share resources and build relationships with each other.

The Congregational relations team, under the leadership of Rabbi Nancy Epstein, is also pleased to offer:

Board training or in-person visits around particular issues
Consulting with Presidents, Rabbis, staff and lay leaders
Gathering information from other JRF affiliates and distributing it to you
Leadership Workshops, Resource books and Curricula see http://63.115.67.94/cong/resources.html
PEARL tele-conference learning sessions for congregational leaders at http://jrf.org/PEARL
Providing community development and programming ideas
On-line audio resources and cassettes on a variety of issues at http://jrf.org/heart-mind-spirit
E-mail discussion groups that give JRF affiliates a way to discuss common issues and share innovative solutions at http://jrf.org/listserves
Fundraising and Planned Giving support through our Development Department at http://jrf.org/development
Regional support for congregations (e.g. Regional councils, Shabbatonim)

For a full listing of available resources, please visit
http://63.115.67.94/cong/congmain.html and http://jrf.org/resources-library

(Note: For communities in the New York-New Jersey, Midwest, Western and Chesapeake regions, please contact your regional directors through the regional websites on the home page.)

"You may have noticed that 'values-based decision making' has been the theme throughout all of the JRF workshops, whether talking about growth, the role of money, or congregational leadership and governance. If we are clear about who we are and what we stand for and communicate these values between and among each other, then the decisions we make - no matter how big or small - will be based upon mutually agreed upon and shared values." --Susan L., Dor Hadash, San Diego, CA

We look forward to providing you with the support you need. Please look at the links above for details. Feel free to contact us directly if you need.

Rabbi Nancy Epstein
Director of Congregational Relations
215-885-5601, ext. 11
Nepstein@jrf.org

Rabbi Shawn Zevit
Senior Consultant
215-885-5601, ext. 24
SZevit@jrf.org

Save the Date: Feb 1-3, 2008, Shabbat of Inclusion

Jill Janofsky — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 11:50:02 -0400

Mark your calenders! JRF joins the UJ Federation of NY in designating the Shabbat of Inclusion, a weekend designed to encourage the participation of our members with disabilities, for February 1-3. We encourage the various leaders of the affiliated Reconstructionist congregations in the NY/NJ region to begin planning for this event at their respective synagogues.

This particular Shabbat coincides with Parshat Mishpatim, which discusses the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. The language of the text certainly resounds in our mission to create an accessible Shabbat service: "For you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Often, people with physical and developmental disabilities are aliented like "strangers" from our congregations. Our Shabbat of Inclusion aims to eliminate this notion of exclusion for all of our disabled congregants and their families.

Most of all, Reconstructionists have been on the forefront of creating inclusive communities. Even so, we can benefit from reminders to keep our doors wide open and to find new ways to be welcoming.

For leaders, please share with us what you do for this important Shabbat....for members, please come to pray, to learn, and to show your support.

Congregation-Based Community Organizing (CBCO)

Brian Fink — Sat, 19 May 2007 03:51:09 -0400

Today, increasing numbers of synagogues are engaging in interfaith campaigns on vital issues of local concern, from expanding health coverage for low income workers to building affordable housing.

Since 2006, The Jewish Reconstructionist Federation has been partnering with the Jewish Funds for Justice (JFSJ) helping to develop a network and resources for Reconstructionist communities in Congregation-Based Community Organizing (CBCO) work. As well, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College began offering training in the model of CBCO activism in the winter of 2007.

More information on community organizing can be found in the summer 2007 edition of Reconstructionism Today and in the January 2007 issue of Shma, and from the Jewish Funds for Justice.

In 2002, JFSJ launched a national initiative to encourage and support synagogues as they deepen their social justice efforts through CBCO. Their goal was to address the lack of sustained engagement in activities beyond direct service programs and to challenge congregations to address systemic issues relating to domestic poverty and social injustice. The CBCO model of activism unites a diverse range of people, primarily through religious congregations, in the shared goal of building a civic power base capable of making change to promote the public good.

What is congregation-based community organizing?

Three core components of the synagogue organizing model are essential to the process:

congregants engage in one-to-one conversations within their synagogue, and often with other congregations, about their social justice passions.
leaders engage in extensive clergy and lay leadership training and development.
synagogue leaders work side-by-side with dozens of faith institutions and progressive organizations in their community, across lines of race, class, and faith.
What is the impact?

Each of these components strengthens lay leaders, is a vehicle for congregational development, and builds strong bridges between Jews and other community leaders and institutions. Eventually, as this model grows deeper roots in synagogues across the United States, we hope it will create a strong synagogue-based voice for creating healthier communities. Examples of this work could include calling for universal health care, a higher minimum wage, or more affordable housing.

In preparation for a workshop delivered at the November, '06 JRF Convention in Philadelphia, we collected Jewish texts relevant to these efforts.

For more information please contact Rabbi Shawn Zevit at JRF, 215-885-5601, ex.24.

Oseh Shalom to Host Shabbat Iyyun: "Faith-based Initiatives and the Perils of Government Funding"

Lisa Tuttle — Thu, 15 May 2008 14:39:54 -0400

When: Friday, May 23, 8 PM
Where: Oseh Shalom, 7515 Olive Branch Way, Laurel, MD

This special evening at Oseh Shalom is third in a series featuring intellectual inquiry woven into the Friday evening service.

Featured speakers from The Interfaith Alliance (TIA) are Ari Geller, Director of Communications, and Preet Singh, Deputy Director of Public Policy. TIA is a nonpartisan organization whose goal is to promote the positive and healing role of religion in public life.

Speakers will address the complex and timely issues surrounding faith-based initiatives or charitable choice proposals — legal, ethical and practical ways for faith organizations and government to work together to remedy societal ills.

Services and presentation 8 - 9 PM. Oneg/dessert and discussion to follow.

For additional information and directions, call (301) 498-5151 or www.oseh-shalom.org.

Come Share Shabbat in Prospect Park, Brooklyn!

Lisa Tuttle — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:28:10 -0400

Grecian Shelter in Prospect ParkWhen: Friday, May 30, 2008, 6:30 p.m.
Where: The Grecian Shelter in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY

Please join the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation as we welcome Shabbat in Prospect Park with song, stories, and a catered community dinner. Children of all ages are welcome. The evening will be led by Rabbi Shoshana Leis (RRC '05) and Avi Fox-Rosen.

Place your e-reservation today!

In case of questionable or inclement weather, call JRF NY/NJ at (212) 870-2483 for alternate plans.

For more information, contact:
Melanie Schneider - jrfny@aol.com
Jayne Roberman - jrforensic@optonline.net
Dan Cedarbaum - dan@cedarbaum.net

Bet Am Shalom's Cantor Benjie Schiller to Give Recital

Lisa Tuttle — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:05:11 -0400

When: Sunday, May 18
Where: Bet Am Shalom Synagogue, 295 Soundview Avenue, White Plains, New York

Cantor Benjie SchillerCantor Benjie Ellen Schiller, cantor of Bet Am Shalom synagogue in White Plains, NY, will give a rare recital performance on Sunday, May 18.

The program, “Life Song Cycle - A musical reflection on the journey of our lives,” will include her own compositions and works of other Jewish composers. A dessert reception will follow the concert. Admission is $36 for adults and $18 for students and children under eighteen.

Cantor Schiller serves as cantor alongside her husband, Rabbi Lester Bronstein, at Bet Am Shalom Synagogue, a Reconstructionist congregation. They sing together in Beged Kefet, a philanthropic Jewish music ensemble.

Cantor Schiller is a nationally known composer. Her works include: "Halleluhu," a multi rhythmic choral piece; "Zeh Dodi," an art song for voice and piano; "Uk'ratem D'ror - Proclaim Liberty," a cantata dedicated to the disaster of 9/11; and various commissioned works for synagogues and choral ensembles. "A World Fulfilled," a solo recording of her compositions, was released in 2002.

When Benjie Ellen Schiller graduated from Boston University with a degree in musical performance, she planned to continue her studies in classical music, perhaps studying opera or composition. After living in Israel for a year with her husband as he began his rabbinical studies, she came to New York, ready to continue her musical path. When completing her first vocal audition in New York City, even though she was well received by the judges, she knew that the world of musical performance was not the world in which she wanted to dedicate her life's work.

As a composer, she felt particularly drawn to Jewish music and she decided to enroll in the cantorial program of Hebrew Union College School of Sacred Music. Today, 24 years later, she serves there as Professor of Cantorial Arts. She is also on the faculty of the cantorial program at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.

For reservations, contact Bet Am Shalom Synagogue at 914-946-8851 or betamshalom@betamshalom.org.

Rabbi Brant Rosen Among Newsweek's Top Rabbis in America

Lisa Tuttle — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 09:35:25 -0400

Brant RosenKol hakavod to Rabbi Brant Rosen, rabbi of the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, IL, for being recognized in Newsweek magazine as one of the Top Pulpit Rabbis in America.

With Rosen's leadership, JRC is gaining notoriety as "America's greenest shul" for meeting the highest standards in green building practices in its recent renovation.

Newsweek's criteria were rabbis' inspirational abilities; leadership within the congregation, denomination and the community; and skills in meeting the spiritual and personal needs of congregants.

Tikkun Olam Concert with Craig Taubman at Oseh Shalom

Lisa Tuttle — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 10:39:53 -0400

When: Saturday night, April 5th, 8:00 p.m.
Where: Oseh Shalom Congregation, Laurel, MD.

Craig TaubmanCraig Taubman, a renowned singer and songwriter, will be giving a concert at Oseh Shalom dedicated to Tikkun Olam! This concert is being sponsored by Oseh Shalom Congregation including the Music & Arts Fund, the Social Action Committee, the Mens' Club and the Sisterhood; and Chesapeake Region JRF, Adat Shalom and Beit Tikvah. This concert is appropriate for adults, teens and families.

Download the attached event flyer and help spread the word!

In honor of Pesach all proceeds from ticket sales will be given to Mazon and Darfur Relief. We will request an $18 donation for adults and a $10 donation for children 10 and under at the door. Checks for tickets can be made out to Oseh Shalom and sent to Jackie Land at 8409 Snowden Loop Ct., Laurel, MD 20708.

If you would like to help sponsor this great concert, please contact Jackie Land at jljrf@aol.com or 301-206-3332.

We hope you will join us for this great evening!

Dream Fulfilled: Temple Beth Hatfiloh's Growing Congregation Embraces Makeover

Lisa Tuttle — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:06:11 -0400

Temple Beth Hatfiloh in Olympia is scheduled to finish its remodeling project this month. The 7,000-square-foot addition on the left houses offices, meeting space and classrooms to better serve members of the congregation. (Steven M. Herppich/The Olympian)by Lisa Pemberton

This article originally appeared in The Olympian and is reprinted with permission.

Members of Temple Beth Hatfiloh in Olympia have envisioned a new synagogue for about 15 years.

"At one time, the (new building) committee was called TBH 2000," said Beth Halpern of Olympia. "When we first started, it seemed realistic."

The dream soon will come to fruition as workers put the final touches on the 18,000-square-foot temple at Eighth Avenue and Washington Street, formerly the home of a Christian Science church.

The temple's $3.2 million capital project - mostly paid for with private donations from the congregation - broke ground in the fall of 2006. It includes:

A complete renovation, including seismic and accessibility upgrades, to the historic, 11,000-square-foot brick building Temple Beth Hatfiloh purchased in 2003.
A 7,000-square-foot addition that houses administrative offices, meeting space and nine classrooms.
Environmentally friendly elements through the site, including a water-wise garden with native plants, salvaged building materials and energy-efficient lighting
and appliances.
New gallery space and several artistic features such as a custom-made aron hakodesh, or holy ark, to hold the congregation's Torah scrolls.
A commercial kitchen with stainless steel appliances and an extra-large social hall.

Rabbi Seth Goldstein said the new synagogue was designed with plenty of kitchen and dining spac e for community events such as today's Blintzapalooza, the

temple's annual charity sale of books, blintzes and bagels.

"A lot of our events have to do around food," he said smiling.

Deep roots

Temple Beth Hatfiloh is Olympia's oldest and largest Jewish congregation; its roots trace back to the mid-1800s, according to congregation president Jeff Trinin.

The only other Jewish temple in South Sound, Congregation B'nai Torah, started as a more conservative offshoot of Temple Beth Hatfiloh. In 2005, it moved into a former evangelical church on Libby Road in north Olympia.

Temple Beth Hatfiloh is affiliated with the Reconstructionist Movement, a branch of contemporary Judaism open to new interpretation and creative forms of

religious expression. Its founding families built their first synagogue in 1938 at Jefferson Street and Eighth Avenue in downtown Olympia, next to the Olympia post office.

"It was a beautiful building," Goldstein said.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the temple's mem bership more than doubled - from 70 families, to more than 160. The 4,500-square-foot synagogue didn't have the capacity to handle the crowd.

"We were very overcrowded where we were," Halpern said.

One of the main issues was lack of classrooms for the temple's religious education program, said Bernie Friedman of Tumwater. Sunday classes were taught in shifts, and teaching areas were carved out of the social hall with 5-foot-high dividers.

The new synagogue features spacious classrooms and two separate libraries - one for children's books and another that includes adult study books and a small chapel.

Accessibility was an issue as well, which is why an elevator and ramps were installed in the building.

"We did, on occasion, have to carry people up the stairs," Trinin said.

And there wasn't enough room to accommodate larger events. For example, High Holiday services were held across town at Unity Church in west Olympia so everyone could attend.

Finding a home

The search for a synagogue has not been an easy one.

In 1996, Temple Beth Hatfiloh purchased land on Olympia's west side to build a new center. But once plans were finished, the congregation learned it would cost more than $10 million to build. Members began weighing other options.

"We looked at churches, we looked at business properties. Anything that seemed like it could work, we looked at it," Halpern said.

One afternoon in the spring of 2003, Halpern visited with Eva Goldberg, the synagogue's matriarch.

"She said, 'Beth, I want you to look at this church, the big white church on Eighth and Washington,'" Halpern recalls. "She said, 'I don't even know if it's for sale.'

"Halpern called her friend Linda Blustein at Interfaith Works and asked about the building.

"She said, 'I can't believe you're asking me. They just said they want to sell it,'" Halpern said.

"We have a term in Yiddish - it's basheret. That just means it was meant to be."

Making the move

The temple bought the building for $580,000, and leased it back to the church for about a year while it prepared for the move. The Christian Science church relocated to its Reading Room in downtown Olympia and began holding services at the nearby State Theater on Fourth Avenue. It's planning to eventually build a new facility on Olympia's west side.

The original synagogue was sold to independent record label K Records for $280,000.

In September 2004, the church officially became a synagogue following a celebration that included singing, dancing, a few blessings and seven circles around the building with the Torah scrolls.

"Right before the High Holidays, we had our dedication," Goldstein said.

Aesthetically, there wasn't much that needed to be done to convert the facility from a Christian church to a Jewish worship space, according to Goldstein.

Prior to the renovation, the only major change was painting over some quotes from the New Testament that had been stenciled on the church's walls, he said.

"One of the things that attracted us to the building was that it was very beautiful and very austere," Goldstein said. "And we felt that we could move right in.

There really wasn't much in the sanctuary that needed to be altered."

Even the church's antique stained glass windows, which don't contain Christian icons, were kept in the sanctuary.

"The windows are gorgeous," Goldstein said. "At the right time of day, when the sun hits them, the room just glows."

Planning for the future

Still, the congregation began planning the facelift and addition as soon as it moved in. The new synagogue was designed with input from the entire congregation, Goldstein said.

Members said they wanted plenty of natural light and performance space. They asked for a building that promoted recycling and reusing, and one with room for community events.

Goldstein said he can't help but think of the temple's founding families and how excited they would be about the new synagogue.

"They never imagined that the Jewish community would be this big - would be thriving," he said.

The building's final artwork should be installed i n the building in May, and plans are under way for a dedication June 22, which corresponds with the congregation's 70th anniversary, Goldstein said.

Many of the temple members, including Friedman, consider the new synagogue a gift for future families.

"It's phenomenal," he said.

"To me, it was a very big honor, a blessing, to be p art of this, to leave the future Judaism of Olympia a wonderful facility."

Lisa Pemberton writes for The Olympian. She can be reached at 360-704-6871 or lpemberton@theolympian.com.

BLINTZAPALOOZA

What: This annual charity blintz, book and bagel sale benefits flood storm victims, Interfaith Works and the Thurston County Food Bank's Backpack Project.

When: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. today

Where: Temple Beth Hatfiloh, 201 Eighth Ave S.E., Olympia

Information: 360-754-8519

Reconstructing the Megillah: Or Hadash Commissions First Truly Reconstructionist Megillat Esther

Lisa Tuttle — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 11:48:30 -0400

Rabbi Kevin Hale laying out the Megillat Esther scroll

An Unusual Megillah
By Marissa Brostoff

This article originally appeared in The Forward and is reprinted with permission.

The Scroll of Esther is getting a makeover from several kids in Pennsylvania, a Reconstructionist scribe and a computer graphics program.

Congregation Or Hadash, a small Reconstructionist synagogue located in the Philadelphia suburb of Fort Washington, has commissioned a sofer to create a megillah that incorporates drawings by students in its religious school.

"We are creating the first truly Reconstructionist megillah," said Rabbi Joshua Waxman, who leads Or Hadash. (To boot, Hale is the first ordained Reconstructionist sofer.)

"It's a kosher scroll, and we use the traditional text, but we engage with it and try to inject our own voices into it and experience it as something fresh."

The megillah project was conceived partly as a celebration of the congregation's 25th birthday. But Waxman was adamant that it would not be an ordinary present.

"It's easy to commission something," Waxman said. "It would have been easy to make a few phone calls to our more generous donors, but instead we invited everyone to help underwrite it for $1.80 a letter. I find it faintly distasteful when synagogues virtually auction off ritual items - you know, 'You, too, can own the Song of the Sea for $15,000.'"

To Waxman and some of his congregants, it also seemed too easy to let a sofer do all the work. So religious-school students were encouraged to submit illustrations of scenes from the Purim story, including "Vashti saying 'no,'" "Mordechai at the gate refusing to bow down," and "Haman being led to the stake."

The result, a range of 20 colorful drawings by artists aged between 5 and 14, was compiled by Hale and grafted onto parchment next to the appropriate portions of text. "It's really an illuminated manuscript," Hale said.

Further enlivening the text, Hale inscribed the names of key characters of the story in different colors. Haman's name - which, Waxman pointed out, is often set aside in traditional megillot to give cantors a chance to work up the contempt with which they must utter it - is in red; Esther's is in green, and Mordechai's is in blue.

Despite the unusual features of this megillah, those involved in its production say it's kosher. "The rules for writing a kosher scroll are more flexible in this case, because nowhere in the megillah is the name of God mentioned," said Gail Morrison-Hall, an art teacher and Or Hadash member who coordinated the scroll-making project.

The scroll was set to be unveiled at a celebration at the synagogue yesterday, four days before Purim. Hale, who lives in Leeds, Massachusetts, was slated to be on hand to teach a crash course in scroll-writing for the congregation's kids. "Who knows, maybe it will inspire a future scribe," Waxman said.