Alim – Seeding New Congregation
OCTOBER 2007 – Congregations, like people, are living organisms; all around the continent, often in the most unlikely places, some are bursting into life and others are entering into the equivalent of their toddlerhood. They face the excitements and challenges of new life as they try to define themselves and recruit others to join them.
Alim, United Synagogue’s program for new congregations, can help those emerging congregations grow and flourish. It provides support and small grants to congregations that are five years old or younger. To qualify for a grant renewal, the congregation must apply to join United Synagogue.
Conservative Jewish communities can form in a variety of ways. Sometimes, it is spontaneous – a nucleus of committed Jews find that they are living near each other, share their frustration at the lack of a Jewish community, or one in which they feel fully comfortable, and decide to build a new one together. At other times, one person can reach out to the United Synagogue regional director, who can do some research and learn that there are other unaffiliated Conservative Jews in the area. United Synagogue regional executive directors have keen senses of their territory, and when they know that a neighborhood has begun to attract more Jews they can work proactively to form a new kehillah.
So far, Alim, itself just a few years old, has worked with more than one dozen congregations, some for two years or more. Just this year, it has awarded grants to two in Florida and one each in Oregon, New York State, Illinois, and California.
Each group is different. Some are what we think of as congregations, others less formal. In Ventura, California, the Chavurah by the Sea is an affiliate of the longstanding Congregation Am Hayam (which, of course, means People of the Sea). Chavurah by the Sea’s members, on the whole, are much younger group than Am Hayam’s, and their relationship to Judaism is in some cases new and in many cases somewhat tentative. With help from Alim, Chavurah by the Sea is offering potluck Shabbat dinners and wine-and-cheese get-togethers in an art gallery; it has also hired a rabbinic intern. Its approach “will involve social action and Jewish culture, so people get comfortable learning in a non-threatening way,” said United Synagogue’s congregational services coordinator, Faye Gingold, whose job includes working with Alim communities.
Each situation is different too. “The people who reach out to us are strongly committed to the movement,” Ms. Gingold said. They might live near other synagogues – it’s hard to find a place so rural Chabad has not discovered it first – but they want the Conservative approach.
Congregation Shaarei Kodesh of Boca Raton, Florida, according to its application, was founded by “seven energetic families looking to create a more intimate synagogue experience.” It began meeting in people’s houses, has grown quickly, merged with another small local congregation, Beth Tikvah, retained the name Shaarei Kodesh, and now has between 130 and 150 member families. The congregation sold 700 seats for the High Holy Days and now is searching for a full-time rabbi.
Or HaGan – Light of the Garden Jewish Community, the only Conservative kehillah for many miles around in western Oregon, is right across the street from the campus of the University of Oregon in Eugene, where its rabbi, Jonathan Seidel, teaches. Many students find that the university’s Hillel is too secular and their other option, Chabad, often does not appeal to people who find themselves, for any number of reasons, unable to agree with that organization’s view of the world. Or HaGan, which is not only for students, relies in large part on grants from Alim for programming and outreach.
Alim’s approach is “not to start only shuls, but to start whatever kind of community it takes,” Ms.Gingold said. “Some are ready to go full steam ahead and start a synagogue, and others want to go more slowly, to learn more about how to be an observant Jew, and to have a unique community.”
Working with the Rabbinical Assembly and the Jewish Theological Seminary, Alim can connect its new or emerging communities with student rabbis through the Emerging Kehillah Initiative, which was establishing to help both new communities and rabbinical students. The fellows, who all are JTS students, intern with establishing congregations for two years, where they can work closely with the rabbi, who has agreed to act as mentor. Each month during those two years and on the High Holy Days, the fellows travel to serve emerging, still rabbi-less congregations.
Although the amount of money available to each new kehillah through the Alim grants is not large, the support can be of incalculable value. Three kinds of grants are available – a one-time materials grant, which can be used to buy such necessary items as siddurim; a once-renewable grant for programs, publicity, and outreach, which can buy a scholar-in-residence weekend, congregational Shabbat dinners, or publicity in the local newspaper; and staff grants, which goes toward salaries.
The program also has held two conference calls aimed at helping new congregations better define their personalities and so understand their needs. They were moderated by Jonathan Schreiber, who specializes in marketing and advertising for nonprofits. The call was open to all Alim congregations’ lay leaders and clergy, and to United Synagogue’s regional directors. A podcast is available on our website.
