JOIN US FOR OUR NEXT INTERNATIONAL BIENNIAL CONVENTION
DECEMBER 6 TO DECEMBER 10, 2009
CROWNE PLAZA HOTEL
CHERRY HILL, NEW JERSEY
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Bring Home the Magic!
Rosen Shingle Creek Resort
Orlando, Florida
Thursday, November 29 to Monday, December 3

Lay leaders, rabbis, educators, other professionals, and synagogue members joined us for study, networking, davening, sharing information, forging new connections, and deepening our sense of ourselves as a movement at our international biennial convention. This year, the convention was held over Shabbat, so the complex joy of that day infused the gathering.

You can read the Convention Reporter and learn about some of each day's newsworthy events.

• Friday Reporter
• Sunday Reporter
• Monday Reporter

Throughout the convention, we celebrated Israel’s upcoming 60th birthday. At one of the sessions devoted to Israel, Rabbi Yafet Alemu (pictured at right), the first Ethiopian-Israeli ordained at the Conservative movement’s Schechter Institute in Jerusalem, spoke. Learn more on how to support the Family Education Initiative and the Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel.

In that same session, Sallai Meridor, Israel’s ambassador to the United States (pictured at left with United Synagogue’s executive vice president, Rabbi Jerome Epstein), addressed the convention.

On Friday night, as we began our celebration of Shabbat, our executive vice president, Rabbi Jerome Epstein, talked about Conservative Jews’ mandate to live actively Jewish lives. Our celebration of Shabbat was enhanced by the participation of cantors from the Conservative movement's Cantors Assembly, who provided us with a range of musical styles and cnoices as they made the day even more beautiful.

At another session, Dr. Arnold Eisen (pictured at right with Dr. Raymond Goldstein, President of the United Synagogue), the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, talked about the future of the Conservative movement.

The convention passed a new version of the standards that guide Conservative congregational life. To read them, click here; to read about them, click here. Read the resolutions proposed by the social action and public policy committee and passed at the convention.

As the convention ended, we said goodbye to the experience with the 25th Hour, a special weekday version of an hourlong celebration that marks the end of Shabbat.

PLEASE JOIN US FOR OUR NEXT INTERNATIONAL BIENNIAL CONVENTION FROM DECEMBER 6 TO DECEMBER 10, 2009, AT THE CROWNE PLAZA HOTEL IN CHERRY HILL, NEW JERSEY. MORE INFORMATION WILL FOLLOW.

Thank you to our sponsors, who helped make our 2007 international biennial convention such a success.