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Conservative Jewish synagogues are focused more on operations than youth engagement, and are more than twice as likely to have a cantor than an associate rabbi.

According to a new survey of Conservative synagogues conducted by the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, about 50 percent of Conservative synagogues employ a youth director, but in only about 12 percent is that a full-time position. While about 54 percent of Conservative synagogues have a cantor (37 percent of them full time), fewer than 25 percent have assistant or associate rabbis, and only 18 percent have a full-time associate rabbi.

About 93 percent of synagogues have a rabbi — 85 percent employ them full-time. Some 61 percent have executive directors, 59 percent have education directors and 54 percent have cantors.

The survey relied on data provided by 331 of USCJ’s 580 member synagogues in the United States and Canada.

“Staffing tends to lead toward operations, not engagement,” said Ray Goldstein, USCJ’s kehilla relationship team leader. (Kehilla, Hebrew for “community,” is the organization’s preferred term for synagogue.)

“When a synagogue comes into money, they hire an executive director before they hire an assistant rabbi,” Goldstein said.

The survey also found that despite much talk in the movement about creating new kinds of positions to address the movement’s changing needs, none of those innovative positions “have taken hold in any meaningful way,” Goldstein said.

Not surprisingly, the synagogues least likely to have a rabbi are the smallest: Only 23 percent of those with fewer than 100 members have a full-time rabbi, compared with 80 percent of those with 100 to 199 members. Associate rabbis mostly appear in synagogues with more than 450 members, while executive directors show up among synagogues in the 100-to-199-member category or above. — jta