Brandeis University researchers are homing in on their vision of the perfect synagogue for the 21st century — with the help of four Bay Area synagogues.
In this idyllic future world, Jews under 30 would pay no membership fee.
Full-time “program directors” would arrange lunchtime study groups near members’ workplaces, distribute ritual objects such as mezuzot, require members to participate in at least one synagogue or tzedakah activity a month and even provide matchmaking services for singles.
These are among the recommendations in a report released this month by Joel Streicker and Gary Tobin of Brandeis University’s Modern Jewish Studies Institute for Community and Religion.
Their findings were based on data collected from the first year of a three-year experiment at Congregations Sherith Israel and Beth Sholom in San Francisco, Kol Shofar in Tiburon and Beth Am in Los Altos Hills.
The experiment — called the Koret Synagogue Initiative and funded by a $400,000 grant from San Francisco’s Koret Foundation — placed a program director at each congregation and tracked the success of various programs for new and existing members as well as nonmembers.
Titled “An Assessment of Synagogue Inreach and Outreach,” the Brandeis report will be sent to 1,200 Jewish institutions nationally.
“This is a starting point to help institutions and individuals in the Jewish community reassess the role of the synagogue in American life, to position it more centrally in the community,” said Streicker.
Research based on surveys and personal interviews spelled out what experts on the subject already know: Jews join synagogues mainly to educate their children; very few synagogue members attend weekly services; and young single Jews feel alienated by the price of membership as well as the predominance of family-focused events.
Findings on programs sponsored by the Koret directors was promising, according to the report. Film screenings, meditation groups, informal chavurot study groups and other new programs were rated “excellent” or “good” by 92 percent of those surveyed.
At Kol Shofar, for example, a monthly Saturday Night at the Synagogue program brings in hundreds of Jews from the community for havdallah services as well as social and educational activities. The “Tevye Horah Picture Show,” a sing-along, dance-along screening of the film “Fiddler on the Roof” held in March, was particularly popular.
“It’s been wildly successful,” says Kol Shofar Rabbi Lavey Derby of the initiative. “Now we have the staff, time and energy to create these kinds of programs.”
The report calls such programming “a gate into synagogue membership” and says 38 percent of new members report Koret Initiative events inspired them to join their synagogue.
As for the cost of such programs, Streicker says, “I don’t presume to tell synagogues how to organize themselves financially.”
However, as far as his suggestion that congregations waive membership dues for young adults, Streicker says, “Once they try it out, they’ll be willing to contribute, maybe further down the line. This will build loyalty and commitment.”
Tad Taube, president of the Koret Foundation, hopes private foundations and Jewish federations will contribute to similar synagogue programs around the country.
“This was an experiment that worked in dramatic fashion,” says Taube. “If this model isn’t replicated, it will have been for naught.”
Federations, he says, have been “allocating funds in rubber-stamp fashion for 20 years to the same organizations in roughly the same amounts. The world is changing. Funding patterns need to be revised.”
In the fall of 1997, the Bay Area experiment will officially end. Streicker says he hopes to write a book based on his experiences researching the Koret Synagogue Initiative.