NEW YORK — A year after a study found the Reform movement was doing a good job of reaching out to interfaith families, the movement — North America’s largest Jewish stream — is dramatically cutting its more than 20-year-old outreach program.
The cuts come as the movement’s Union of American Hebrew Congregations, blaming the recession, is slashing its total operating budget of about $20 million by 10 percent, or $2 million.
Outreach, long considered one of the movement’s flagship programs, and adult education have been hit the hardest, accounting for 15 percent of the cuts, but virtually every department is being affected. The UAHC is also scaling back employee benefits and subletting 25 percent of its Manhattan office space.
Arguing that the $300,000 in cuts to outreach will make it harder to draw in the intermarried, who affiliate at far lower rates than families with two Jewish partners, some synagogues and advocates for interfaith families are protesting the move, particularly the planned dismissal of all 13 regional outreach coordinators.
One of the more outspoken critics is Edmund Case, president of Interfaithfamily.com Inc., a Web publisher and advocacy group “working to encourage Jewish choices by interfaith families, as well as an increased acceptance of interfaith families by the Jewish community.”
Case said the UAHC’s regional outreach professionals “have led countless thousands of people into more involvement in Jewish life.” Cutting the outreach efforts, he added, is “like a business in financial difficulty firing its sales force. Who’s going to bring in new customers?”
Locally, the cuts, which take effect March 31, will have a direct impact, eliminating a part-time outreach coordinator position at the UAHC’s regional office in San Francisco.
However, Rabbi Michael Berk. the regional director, says the outreach work will go on unabated.
“Our congregations in the Bay Area have a lot of grassroots programming,” Berk said. “We have an incredible network of experienced volunteers who will step up to the plate. They will continue to make their expertise available.”
Meanwhile, Case’s synagogue, Temple Shalom of Newton, Mass., has drafted a resolution urging the UAHC to reconsider the cuts; the temple is urging other congregations to follow suit. Case said the cuts could be avoided if the UAHC seeks outside sources of funding for outreach.
Emily Grotta, the UAHC’s director of marketing and communications, defended the cuts, saying the UAHC faces a 10 percent deficit and that with three national staff members, outreach still draws more resources than many other programs.
In addition, Grottasaid the Reform movement would continue to do a good job of reaching interfaith families.
“When outreach began there was hardly a congregation in the country that knew how to reach out to interfaith families,” she said. “There’s not a congregation left that doesn’t know how to do this. It’s so ingrained in the fabric of our congregations.”
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the UAHC president, was not available for comment.
Reform’s belt-tightening comes at a time when many Jewish organizations, like most nonprofits, are being hurt by the weak economy. In particular, the UAHC blames the downturn for its poor endowment returns, decline in contributions and surge of member congregations unable to pay their dues. Congregational dues comprise 80 percent of Reform’s revenues.
But the other major streams of Judaism, which are smaller than Reform and less dependent on congregational dues and endowments, are so far avoiding the need for cuts, even as donations are falling.
Some observers have credited Reform’s growth with the rise in intermarriage and the fact that Reform congregations are widely perceived as more accepting of interfaith families than the Conservative. Almost half of Reform rabbis officiate at intermarriages, whereas Conservative and Orthodox rabbis are forbidden to do so.
Rabbi Kerry Olitzky, executive director of the Jewish Outreach Institute, expressed disappointment in the UAHC cuts overall, not just to outreach, but was less concerned than Interfaithfamily.com’s Case.
“I don’t think outreach was singled out,” Olitzky said. “I know Rabbi Yoffie had to make difficult decisions and I don’t envy those decisions.”
“The need for outreach is still apparent and continuing to grow, and we hope to be able to be responsive to some of the program gaps left by the changes in staffing at the UAHC,” he added.
Noting that in the Bay Area, volunteers take a primary role in outreach efforts, Berk said one of the UAHC’s most effective programs has been its outreach fellowship training, a 10-day boot camp for volunteers who then go back to their congregations. Graduates of the program are still active.
“Our region has employed this model before,” Berk said. “Trained volunteers go to synagogues to run outreach workshops. They start programs and generate leaders who chair outreach committees, who then form networks of those committee chairs.”