By Manny Frishberg, JTNews Correspondent
The national leadership of the Conservative movement in America descended on Seattle in mid-January for a five-day conclave. They discussed everything from religious questions to methods of maintaining and growing a congregation at the start of the 21st century.
Jay Weiner, who serves as the executive director for both the Pacific Northwest and Northern California chapters of United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, said the annual gathering is a five-day working session for lay leaders from the organization’s 15 regions, “as well as some of the key people in from New York.”
“Each region has a president, a president-elect and an immediate past president,” he said. The sessions are designed to allow the leadership “to discuss issues within the United Synagogue. It’s a bonding opportunity for these people who live everywhere from Toronto to Orlando to Kansas City, to Seattle and Vancouver and Calgary.”
Weiner said about 50 people nationally had planned to attend the conference, in addition to the 10 to 15 invited guests from around the Pacific Northwest, who joined them for some part of the sessions.
Thursday evening they held a dinner at Congregation Beth Shalom in Seattle’s Northend with rabbis Charles Feinberg and Rachel Nussbaum talking about their visions for the Conservative movement now and in the future. Rabbi Feinberg is from Temple Beth Israel in British Columbia and Nussbaum is the associate rabbi at Herzl Ner-Tamid on Mercer Island.
Weiner explained the particular significance of having these two rabbis lead the talk.
“Rabbi Feinberg has the most tenure of all the rabbis in the region and Rabbi Nussbaum is the newcomer on the block, in her first year out of Divinity School,” he said.
Rabbi Jerome Epstein, executive vice president of United Synagogues, said the purpose of the sessions was to allow the top leadership from around North America to have the opportunity “review and reshape our vision.”
A fair amount of the agenda for the five days in Seattle are dedicated to the nuts and bolts of maintaining a congregation, with panels and workshops on such topics as “How USCJ Regions Can Help Make Congregations Effective in Marketing,” “Job Descriptions, How to Evaluate Your Effectiveness, Reducing Tension, Regional-Central Collaboration, Building Partnerships, and Teamwork” and a set of break-out sessions on service centers such as “How Regions can be Better Service Providers to Congregations,” “How to Get Congregations What They Need” and “Moving to the Service Centers Model.”
Rabbi Epstein said the meat of the meeting was to reinvent the organization’s vision and find ways to ground that vision in the real life experiences of the leaders and their congregants.
“What is important is for any national organization or international organization to constantly not only relate the vision but to reshape it according to what we are hearing from people who are out in the trenches,” Epstein said in a telephone interview from the airport, waiting to get on his flight to Seattle. “People often make a statement about something without really feeling what the reality is in the congregation. One of the things this allows us to do is to work together in a collaborative way to build a stronger set of services to our congregations based on what they need and what we can help them do together. I think there will be a lot of effort in terms of constantly retooling ourselves to do whatever we decide to do better.”
One topic Epstein singled out was the subject of spirituality and how to make it easier for members of the congregations to integrate that into their daily lives.
“I think an ability to help translate the word ‘spirituality’ into some concrete steps that will impact on people’s lives” is one of the things that the attendees will be looking for, he said.
“Spirituality is a very nebulous term, unless you translate it into something people can fine tune in their own lives. It’s very difficult. Congregations want help in saying, ‘Okay, we know that people want spirituality, but how do we create that?” Epstein said. “We’re also going to meet with some people from other institutions that have had success in helping synagogues create a sense of community.”
Epstein also mentioned discussion about making the movement’s programs relevant for the diverse regions being represented, and highlighting some of the new projects that United Synagogues has undertaken. Chief among those is the Shirley and Jacob Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center, which was formally dedicated last October.
“We want to talk about ways in which we can bring that service that the center in Israel can offer so that we can have a wonderful institution in Israel,” said Rabbi Epstein.
According to the United Synagogue’s Web site, the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center “is the presence of Conservative Judaism in Israel.” The purpose of the center is to help bolster the religious, educational, social, and youth activities of the Conservative movement in Israel as well as enhancing Conservative Judaism worldwide.
Completing the initial phase of the center for its opening took six years to accomplish and represents a significant undertaking “by and for the Conservative Movement of North America.”
The conference wrapped up on Monday morning with a Shacharit morning service, Torah reading by Dr. Steven Huberman, a brunch and a Shalom L’Hitraot goodbye ceremony before the leaders scattered again to their own corners of the Jewish world.