WITNESS ON WHEELS: A Pastor and a Rabbi Travel in a Journey of Discovery

Rabbi Neil F. Blumofe 0 Comments

When feeling overwhelmed — immersed and implicated — in the complex, amalgamated legacies of the United States, it is best to phone a friend.  Involving Rev. Dr. Daryl Horton, Youth Pastor/Assistant to the Pastor at Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Austin, Texas in my inquiry and interrogation of my place in this country immediately sharpened the focus of my existential investigation – what does it mean to inherit the various legacies of the United States?  What responsibilities, privileges, and perils do I have as a Jew, navigating both current events and encountering the ghosts on the various frontiers as this country expanded?  How am I situated in justice work – crafting a path, intellectual and activist, that enables me to be a spiritual leader and […]

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Jew it at Home: A New Business Model for Jewish Institutions

Rabbi Adam Lutz 0 Comments

It all started with a simple conversation that would frighten many in the world of Jewish institutional life. In early March 2020, my colleague, Rabbi Dara Frimmer, and I discussed the imminent closure of our synagogues due to the COVID-19 outbreak. We shared how we planned to offer digital worship, online religious school, and distance preschool programming. In our conversation, I posed a seemingly innocuous but somewhat provocative suggestion for Jewish institutions to date: “Why don’t we share resources? Share material? Share online classes? That way, while people are stuck at home, they will have plenty of opportunities to remain connected. And by sharing, we don’t have to shoulder the entire load ourselves.” And thus, JewItAtHome.com was born. We launched JewItAtHome.com as a spiritual, Jewish […]

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Synagogue Innovation in the Age of Corona

Rabbi Sid Schwarz 0 Comments

I know that I am not alone in being impressed at how quickly the Jewish community was able to provide program content via the web as much of North America moved to “shelter in place.” As we begin to adjust to our new, surreal lives, more is being written about the shape of our post-pandemic world. My particular interest is the impact on spiritual communities in North America. For years I have been working with rabbis and synagogues to re-think how they can create more compelling spiritual communities.  In recent years, the main delivery vehicle for that training has been a two-year fellowship for rabbis called the Clergy Leadership Incubator (CLI). CLI uses the discipline of adaptive leadership to equip rabbis with the tools to […]

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A Shabbat Culture Change

Rabbi Jeremy Fine 0 Comments

In 2014, I was promoted to my current position after the departure of my senior rabbi. I had only served as the assistant for a little over a year. I knew nearly nothing about running a large synagogue. I had about three years of assistantships, with two different senior rabbis. I had spent a lot of time in rabbinical school soaking up wisdom and strategy from visits, local rabbis and professionals and personal mentors. But I was not ready for the day to day responsibilities of a senior rabbi nor the stratergic planning that comes with the opportunity. I was fortunate to have a president with a very specific set of skills to help mold my thinking. At the time of my promotion, I only […]

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Disruptive Judaism: Will Your Synagogue Be Beit Blockbuster or Kehillat Netflix?

Rabbi Paul Kipnes 0 Comments

Whenever we get stuck in the midst of a synagogue brainstorming session or change project, I trot out my cherished $50 Blockbuster gift card. It reminds us that unless our synagogue is willing to reexamine, bust through sacred cows, and innovate, we are liable to fall into irrelevance and disappear. That gift card warns us all that our synagogue – every shul actually – is in danger of becoming Beit Blockbuster. Once upon a time, that $50 Blockbuster gift card would have offered a full weekend of fun: VHS movies rentals, a tub of popcorn, and a bottle of Diet Coke. Today it’s worth nothing. Its value went the way of the company itself. Blockbuster, once the darling of the business world having owned or […]

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V’Ahavta: The Caring Collectives of Temple Beth Shalom

Rabbi Sarah Freidson 0 Comments

In a world where people seem to be cold and cruel, I have witnessed my congregation’s members demonstrate kindness, compassion, and concern time and time again. When I was 33-years old, my marriage ended and I became a single parent to a toddler, six months into a new job as the solo rabbi of Temple Beth Shalom, a small synagogue in Mahopac, NY.  I had no local support system when the life I had built cracked apart. As I broke the news individually to each member of my congregation’s executive committee, they shocked me.  Every single one of them said something along the lines of, “I’m so sorry.  The details are none of my business.  How can I support you?”  And support me they did, […]

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A Playbook for Legacy Institutions That Want to Stay Relevant

Rabbi Jen Gubitz 0 Comments

It’s Shabbat morning in October 2018.  On the other side of the river from our synagogue, Temple Israel of Boston, we’re gathered for Shabbat brunch in a Cambridge co-working space to explore the question: What is a soul? The group of young adults have wandered through wisdom drawn from Shabbat morning liturgy (Elohai Neshama), Mumford & Sons (Awake My Soul), and modern experiences (SoulCycle or “That’s soul crushing!”). Some participants ask about the soul of animals, some about the souls of the departed, some just listen to the conversation and nosh on the bagels. These curious young adults are what I’ve been calling “emergent seekers”.   At morning’s end, our phones begin buzzing and the news of the tragic shooting at Tree of Life synagogue in […]

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On Being an Artist-Rabbi

Rabbi Hannah Dresner 0 Comments

In a television interview shortly before his death, Abraham Joshua Heschel was asked if he had a message for young people. Watching live with my parents, I was a young person at the time, and Heschel seemed to speak directly to me, responding: “Build your life as a work of art.” My rabbinate is an artistic practice.  The spiritual community I serve, in its complexity, is a creation under continuous construction, and not just what looks or sounds like fine art is our art, but, through this lens, our Bet Midrash, our Dialogue Project, our delivery of gemilut chesed, are all part of the artwork. At Or Shalom, we are knitting together a congregation integrating new, younger, members with the older members who hold our […]

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The Rabbinic Intrapreneur

Rabba Rachel Kohl Finegold 0 Comments

In an era when young Jews are questioning the relevance of the synagogue, the role of the rabbi is changing. While the typical rabbi used to be one who was ensconced in a pulpit (consider the use of the term “installation” to refer to the welcoming of a new rabbi!), there are now many entrepreneurial rabbis building new models of spiritual community around North America. Their numbers are growing, and their success is significant. These rabbinic entrepreneurs include Rabbi Dan Horowitz (The Well in Detroit and CLI Cohort 2), Rabbanit Dasi Fruchter (The Shteibel in Philadelphia), Rabbi Aaron Levy (Makom in Toronto), and Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann (Mishkan in Chicago and CLI Cohort 1). Other entrepreneurial rabbis have created Jewish start-ups focused on adult education, such […]

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Designing the Synagogue Member Experience

Aimee Close 1 Comment

According to Wikipedia, design is defined as “the creation of a plan or convention for the construction of an object, system or measurable human interaction (as in architectural blueprints, engineering drawings, business processes, circuit diagrams, and sewing patterns).” Imagine any consumer product, and one thing you can be certain of is that it went through a design phase before it was brought to market. If you think about how mobile phones have changed over the past twenty years, you will see the impact that designers have on a product.  From the first large, clunky wireless handsets with one inch screens and an external antenna, to the flip phone, to the Blackberry, to the iphone, designers at the various manufacturing companies did research, held focus groups, and […]

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