milwaukee (ap) | An Orthodox synagogue is offering $150 to young Jewish adults to take classes about Judaism.
The money was promised to nine students who signed up for Lake Park Synagogue’s “Learn, Earn and Lead” program if they attend five Friday nights.
It includes the regular Shabbat service in the sanctuary, a dinner and a discussion and guest speaker on topics like spirituality in the Sabbath observance, Jewish prayer, atheism and what happens after death.
David Ostrow, 18, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee freshman who grew up in Israel and moved to the area two years ago, said the stipend is incidental.
“I’d do it anyway,” said Ostrow, who attended an Orthodox school in Israel. “I live around here and so, since I keep Shabbos, it wasn’t a big deal for me to walk there.”
But, without the stipend, “I wouldn’t feel as obligated to stay.”
Offering money to attend religious education or services is part of a growing trend in which Orthodox Jewish religious leaders and educators liken the payments to scholarships. They are striving to counter the loss of religious identity that causes young Jews to assimilate into general culture.
“A few people have questioned it,” Lake Park Synagogue Rabbi Shlomo Levin said of the stipend. “One student actually told me he felt uncomfortable and would come even if there were no payment. I said, ‘You tell me what charity you want to donate it to.'”
Levin’s program is based partly on the Maimonides Leaders Fellowship program that Jewish Awareness America started at the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus in the fall of 2002.
At all the programs, applicants are interviewed to screen out those who are interested in only the money.