By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent
From Ketchum, Idaho to Billings, Montana, to Anchorage, Alaska and beyond, leaders and educators from Reform Jewish institutions throughout the Pacific Northwest and around the country gathered for the Union of American Hebrew Congregations’ 22nd Pacific Northwest Council Regional Biennial 2003, Assemble The People.
For three days in February, representatives from the region that encompasses Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana shared their visions and their challenges on topics ranging from Reform Jewish education to the security of Israel.
“This is synergy,” said Rabbi David Fine, director of the UAHC-PNW. “We can help congregations become better at being themselves. They get the benefit of having each other’s wisdom and experience to rely on and they can share their enthusiasm.”
Fine says that bringing the Northwest region together is also a chance for different Jewish communities to see how others manage the various aspects of congregational life.
“There are now 33 congregations in the Pacific Northwest ranging from 25 households to well over a thousand members,” said Fine. “Most congregations have less than 200 households in them. All of the congregations that are now at 1000 or 1200 members started off as small ones. The question is ‘How can we thrive and use our limited resources to our best advantage being separated from the larger Jewish centers?’”
According to Fine and UAHC president Rabbi Eric Yoffie, who attended the biennial, the way to enhance Jewish communal life is through congregational association and by strengthening Jewish education. Through increased parental involvement, religion schools can continue to build even healthier Jewish communities.
“I believe religion schools are special because it is there that children are learning to be Jewish,” said Yoffie. “We need to go out of our way to bring in the best teachers. They need to be knowledgeable and they need to be role models.”
Yoffie also unveiled new guidelines adopted by the UAHC that encourages parents to become learners.
“Parents ought to be in the [children’s] classroom six times a year and take three sessions of parent education,” said Yoffie. “What we’re asking for is a 50 percent level of participation. We’re offering the material and we’ve set these national guidelines.”
Fine agreed.
“Certainly Jewish education is not just for kids,” he added. “I think youth are very important, but our congregations are places of learning.”
The UAHC represents more than 900 Reform synagogues throughout America that unite approximately 1.5 million Reform Jews. They are the congregational component of the Reform Jewish Movement in America.
Outgoing UAHC-PNW president Sonia Siegel Vexler said the regional conferences are important and that she’ll miss the community support.
“Biennials are an extended Shabbat,” said Siegel Vexler. “This was a chance for every one to really immerse themselves and explore synagogue life.”
Siegel Vexler also echoed the call for an increased focus on adult education.
“I think Rabbi Yoffie has made a commitment to education. The Sunday schools we have today are not the same as they used to be when I went to school,” she said.
Yoffie closed the biennial speaking not only to the future of Reform Jewish education but also addressed two urgent concerns facing American Reform Jews — support for the security of Israel and the threat of a growing tolerance toward anti-Semitism.
“American Jews are the only community in the world which has not experienced a significant rise in Anti-Semitism,” Yoffie said. “We have a special role here as a protector of world Jewry. There is growing anti-Semitism in the Arab world and in Europe in particular. Europeans are condoning terror by a failure to condemn terror in Israel and Yasser Arafat. We maintain a commitment to Kol Yisroel (all Israel).”
Although his desire is to see unanimous support for Israel, Yoffie is quick to temper his commitment with a caution to the Jewish community not to abandon traditional Jewish values of justice and fairness.
“I believe the Jewish community is absolutely united in insuring the security of Israel,” said Yoffie, “but we’re not going to lose track of the moral values built into our tradition. We’re not going to make war with the enemy and we need to re-educate those whose views are different from our own.”
When asked about the differences of opinions within the Jewish community over Israel’s policies Yoffie drew a clear line.
“Any distancing from Israel is generally unacceptable,” added Yoffie. “Whether we agree on the policy itself is another question. Israelis are divided. These same divisions are going to exist elsewhere in the Jewish world. I think the embrace of Israel is overwhelming in the Reform movement and in the Jewish community as well.”
During the biennial, speakers covered other issues deemed central to the future of the Northwest’s Reform congregations such as teacher recruitment and retention, evolving the Reform liturgy, member retention, political and social action dialogue, development of smaller congregations, marketing and development of congregational Web sites and managing budgets.
“The growth in our region has been fantastic,” said Siegel Vexler. “We’ve had seven congregations affiliate with the UAHC-PNW in the last two years. I don’t know if that’s the same as the national average, but it’s the largest growth we’ve seen in our region.”