Congregation Beth Torah in Richardson, Texas, is a tight-knit community of about 280 families. In fact, they like to boast that their motto is “big enough to serve you, small enough to know you.” This is especially true of their young professional community affectionately known as Next Dor. They are a very active group, meeting frequently for Shabbat dinners, coffee meetups, weekly trivia, and more. This past Erev Rosh Hashanah, their Executive Director Katie Babin wanted to plan something special for the chag. She utilized the YALA Partnerships grant funding to provide a free dinner and text study right before the congregation’s Erev Rosh Hashanah services. The event was so successful that several young adults who attended are still engaged with the community today.
Katie had seen a similar event at another congregation and thought it would work well with Congregation Beth Torah. She struggled initially to find funding.
She remembers, “I was kind of panicking, like, how am I gonna pay for this? If we need to print something, if we need to buy food, I want to feed them because services start at seven.”
Then she received an email about the YALA Partnerships grants, which reimburse up to $400 for young professional events. The event started to come together quickly after that. Since their sole rabbi was occupied, she looked for someone else to lead the text study.
She recalls, “One of the congregants that is in our Next Dor group stepped up and said, ‘I’m going to challenge myself, I want to learn how to use Sefaria and make a resource sheet.’ And I said go for it. And so she did it. And it was beautiful. It was wonderful. We’re a very participatory kind of community. And this is just reflective of that.”
Katie notes, “This community is very growth-minded. Like they want to learn, they’re here to learn. They’re here to be spiritually connected. And they’re here to build relationships with people and have a strong sense of community. And so that’s one of the things that I noticed about the attendees at this program, which I just loved. People wanted to be engaged in this Torah study.”
Beyond community building, the event also served a dual purpose of attracting new members. For non-members who attended the dinner and text study, Katie made sure they knew they were welcome to attend the Erev Rosh Hashanah services without a ticket.
YALA’s grant funding enables communities to hold events like these and open their doors to young professionals.
Katie states about YALA, “What I really like about [YALA] is that it gives us a resource. It’s this resource at the USCJ that we can go to if we have any questions or we need ideas. Knowing that I can go to that WhatsApp group, or I can read the emails and learn about some new ways people are engaging young people. Because we hear this all the time that young people aren’t engaged anymore. YALA and the microgrants allowed us to engage our community in the way they wanted to be engaged. It’s really nice that that resource is there.”
YALA is offering grants to synagogues and clergy that would like to host events for young adults. Learn more about the YALA Partnerships grant funding here and bring an event to your community today!
