A Reminder. Don’t forget that this Friday night (July 20) is “Shabbat at the Beach!” We will be having services at Conover Pavilion, Phillips Avenue at 6:30PM. Come join us for this special service-praying alongside the beautiful ocean is a gift of living in this area, don’t miss out on this opportunity. And please be an ambassador and bring your friends!
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I have been thinking a lot lately about “membership.” What does it mean to be a “member” of the Jewish community today? How must synagogues learn to think differently in an age where membership and affiliation are less important to many in the Jewish community, even to those who are interested in living meaningful Jewish lives? How will we, as a synagogue, need to adapt in a “fee for service” culture when, in my opinion, belonging to a synagogue has to mean something different than belonging to a gym.
It is with those challenges in mind that I read the following article with interest. Written by Allan Finkelstein, the CEO of the JCC Association, this article critiques the Jewish community’s current conceptions of membership and affiliation and offers a different model for creating a successful Jewish community. I am not sure that I agree with its entirety, but the broader points of embracing the concept of “engagement,” and the importance of Jewish institutional collaboration, are certainly useful. And if the broader Jewish community acted on this model, I have no doubt that it would help to ensure the relevance of Jewish life in general — and synagogue life in particular – for the 21st century.
Check it out for yourself. What do you think?
From Affiliation to Engagement, From Silos to Playlists
Today, people no longer “affiliate” or “join.” While a sense of belonging feels good, loyalty to the organization or institution is trumped by stronger desires for individual meaning and purpose. Being unaffiliated no longer implies lack of interest in things Jewish or lack of connection with Jews or Jewish life. Certainly, to restrict affiliation to congregational membership alone doesn’t describe how Jews see themselves connecting with Jewish life….
A term more appropriate to today’s reality is “engagement.” Our goal is to engage more and more Jews in activities, causes, social justice ventures, spiritual searches, cultural involvement, learning and social networks that deepen their connections to Jewish life. Every study of Jewish identity confirms that the more involvements people have, the more likely they are to do things Jewish, whether lighting Shabbat candles, studying Jewish texts, reading Jewish blogs, listening to Jewish music, or engaging in Tikkun Olam.
I grew up at a time when membership meant everything. Today, the focus on membership per se may actually be a barrier to engagement by privileging the meaningless act of dues-paying over the plethora of meaningful Jewish involvements. Less engaged Jews are not interested in how we think they should connect, or how we build our institutions. Their search for meaning requires that we ease access and smooth out the handoffs from one program to another. In the world in which we now live, the focus on institutional survival as an endgame will likely lead to the opposite effect. Our shared goal should be deeper penetration into the Jewish community, being comfortable with flexibility, helping people create their own playlists for Jewish life……
We want people at our JCCs, congregations, minyanim, organizations, projects, start-ups, bookstores, cafes, theaters and Israel trips to engage with the extraordinary multiplicity of Jewish life and thought through culture, through learning, through history, through action, and through the whole mish-mash that is today’s Jewish scene. Our communal spaces and institutions need to appear (and be) flexible, non-prescriptive, and welcoming, in short, well-suited to introducing a current generation of Jews both to what it has meant to be Jewish in the past and to what being Jewish means today. Those meanings may well be different, but the interplay between dissimilar viewpoints has always been the essence of Jewish tradition and community life. The vision of Jewish life for the 21st century needs to be pluralistic, outward looking, self-confident, and vibrantly Jewish.
For some interesting and practical commentary on how this issue specifically relates to synagogue membership, check out the following thought provoking book, written by my colleague and teacher Rabbi Hayim Herring: Tomorrow’s Synagogue Today: Creating Vibrant Centers of Jewish Life