Rabbi Sid Schwarz

Synagogue Innovation in the Age of Corona

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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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It is Called “Covenantal Community”

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We should appreciate David Cygielman for introducing the broad eJP audience to the notion of communal “thickness” in his 11/13/17 post. As was noted in the response by Rabbi Michael Holzman, this is not a new concept. Well before the David Brooks’ column in the New York Times, sociologists have sought ways to measure the depth of connection between the people who make up any given social system. The idea of thickness was first introduced into the lexicon of the social sciences by Clifford Geertz in his classic study, The Interpretation of Cultures, which was published in 1973. In my view, it is essential that those who care about the future health of the American body politic focus their attention on the nature of community. […]

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Preparing Rabbis to be Change Agents

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Last winter I was at a first-of-its-kind gathering in Austin, TX. The leaders of more than ten national religious denominations came together to explore why their congregations were losing membership so rapidly over the last decade. The gathering included leadership from the Methodists, Episcopalians, United Church of Christ, Lutherans, Unitarian Universalists as well as top leadership from the Union for Reform Judaism, United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism and the Reconstructionist Movement. There were also a handful of consultant/thought leadership types who have created programs designed to better equip clergy to get ahead of the curve on the rapid changes in American society that are at the root of the declining market share of conventional religious institutions. One of the most important presentations at the gathering […]

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Rev. John Steinbruck: Spiritual Role Model

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If a picture is worth a thousand words, a life counts for a million or more. Last week I attended a memorial service for Reverend John Steinbruck who died on March 1st at the age of 85. When I moved to Washington D.C. in 1984 to take the post as the executive director of the Jewish Community (Relations) Council of Greater Washington, John was already a legend in a city that is somewhat jaded by all of the personages of importance (or perceived self-importance). John came to Washington in 1970 to be the senior pastor of Luther Place Church. His church was at the corner of 14th and N Streets, an area that a couple of years earlier had burned in the riots following the […]

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From Synagogue Centers to Intentional Spiritual Communities

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In my book, Finding a Spiritual Home, I profiled four congregations, one from each of the major American Jewish denominations. Each had a track record attracting serious Jewish seekers who tended to avoid conventional synagogues. What emerged from the study were four principles that these congregations seemed to share and which suggested an exciting new paradigm for American synagogues. I’ve come to call this paradigm “intentional spiritual community” and I have worked with dozens of congregations helping them move from the older, synagogue-center paradigm, whose appeal is fading, to this newer paradigm. This work in the field has allowed me to fine-tune the four principles which I believe can help American synagogues become better suited to the contemporary realities of American society. Mission Driven and […]

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A Synagogue Stimulus Plan

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At the recent national convention of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Rabbi Ed Feinstein was reported to have said, “The house is on fire,” as a way to signal to Conservative congregations that the hour is too late for synagogues to think about modest changes in the way they do their business. Since the 2000 publication of my book, Finding a Spiritual Home: How a New Generation of Jews can Transform the American Synagogue, I have worked with many congregations and rabbis across the denominational spectrum about strategies to move their institutions from the current paradigm — the synagogue-center — to a new paradigm, the synagogue-community, which is far better suited to address the changing reality of American life and the next generation of American […]

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