By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent
The oldest Conservative congregation in Seattle is changing up its educational format, trading “boutique Judaism” and the “Synaplex” model of individually tailored ritual for a “holistic” generational approach with the help of its newly hired director of congregational learning, Rabbi Jill Levy.
Herzl-Ner Tamid Conservative Congregation’s longtime spiritual leader, Rabbi Jay Rosenbaum, said a shift in Judaism is taking place around the world. Jewish communities, he said, are becoming more proactive, less defensive, and better at becoming the people who survived tremendous odds to thrive in the 21st century.
HNT, he told the JTNews, will follow that trend beginning this year.
“We live in the age of individualism, and we’ve been doing that,” Rosenbaum said. “A family service, a teen service, a main service — and we reached people in new ways. But the sense of community needed to be developed a little more deeply. “
So the board and HNT leadership started asking questions about how to meld the Frankel Religious School, the membership, and the community to a new and unified level.
“How do we create more connectivity between the age groups and have a more deeply connected relationship between the school and the synagogue?” Rosenbaum asked. “We want to create a more holistic way of thinking about everything Jewish.”
Levy’s new role at the synagogue will incorporate this new vision, which emphasizes life-long learning.
Only onboard a few weeks, Levy, who was ordained in May from the Jewish Theological Seminary, held the Wexner Fellowship there and was a Legacy Heritage Fellow, also earned a master’s degree in Public Administration from Columbia University.
When the board and the congregation decided to hire a director of congregational learning instead of continuing with a more child-focused education director, Levy was a natural selection for many reasons, including the fact that she received her bachelor’s degree at the University of Washington in Conservation Biology.
“Right now we’re very much in the planning stages,” said Levy. “Part of what I’ll be doing over the course of this year is taking a really serious look at the religion school programs. What we don’t want to have is independent silos…but we want to see ourselves as an integrated whole. What happens in the religious school also has an effect on what happens in the main sanctuary.”
One of the first initiatives will be a music program on Sunday mornings, led by local musician Chava Mirel.
The existing B’Yachad program, a two- or three-day-a-week religious school program for grades 3 through 5, already includes a family education component. B’Yachad is meant to encourage parents to get involved and learn with their kids, in the synagogue.
“Rabbi Rosenbaum and I are going to be teaching classes for the parents while their kids are in religion school,” Levy said. “And there will probably be some kind of learning together component where the family studies together.”
The second hour of the morning, she said, will be an interactive parent-to-parent discussion time focused around Jewish values and family dynamics.
Levy, her husband, and their two daughters, ages 2 and 4 months, relocated to Seattle from Philadelphia, where she was attending the Jewish Theological Seminary. She was born and raised in Houston, Texas.
Levy met her husband when the two were working at Hillel of Georgia in Atlanta. He has been a student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and is currently taking time off to be a stay-at-home dad.
“I’m the parent of two very young kids,” said Levy. “I know that having that community of other people to speak with about different struggles that I’m going through with my own kids is really helpful.”
One new aspect of this holistic education program will be the intermingling of generations — a 55-and-older group will spend time with the early childhood classes, for example. USY youth group members might learn with their parents, or a community-wide teach-in could be in the works for the synagogue. It’s all being formulated now, and its proponents say the Herzl-Ner Tamid community should be stronger for it.
According to Rosenbaum, it’s all about continuity and connectivity.
“We want to give [members] a sense of what their future might look like 10, 15 years from now,” said Rosenbaum. “If they’re coming with 3-year-olds, we hope that they would already be thinking about where they want their kids to be Jewishly when they graduate high school or college.”