Here is the interesting story

An interesting Story....

To break the Yom Kippur fast I went to my sister’s house. During the bagel course, I had a chance to speak to my brother-in-law, who happens to be a board member at a conservative shul in Harrison. We got to talking and he advised me that his shul had lost over 100 families in the last two to three years based upon internal bickering.

Since they were a congregation that was over 500 families and was now significantly less we started talking about what the Conservative movement needed to do in connection with membership.

I suggested that conservative congregations had to:

Advertise and have events that give people an opportunity to meet the Rabbi, get to know the Hebrew school, experience the religious services.

Use United Synagogue to assist in planning and devising a strategy for the retention of members and the growing of the conservative movement.

Refurbish existing conservative shuls to make them more inviting and relevant to the modern Jew

Revise the dues structure to pro-actively take into consideration demographics, including the traditional loss of members after the last Bar/bat mitzvah. This may require a many-tiered approach to membership to grow the congregation while keeping those members who no longer feel the need to remain members since the "children have grown".

Promote the Conservative movement as a viable and intelligent alternative to reform and orthodox movements. The conservative movement must demonstrate that it provides the best Jewish education for our children that will not be living in Jewish segregated communities.

Promote the Conservative movement as family oriented where the congregation is an extended family, a "Chavura" which works together and is there to provide support and love.

BUT THEN I REMEMBERED THAT FHC SIMPLY IS NOT DOING ANY THESE THINGS.

We have not even settled out arrears with United Synagogue so we cannot (yet), use it as a resource. We have not had a membership event in years. We have not done anything pro-actively to address the need to grow the membership

It is quite easy for us to find a scapegoat for the loss of members. Heck, as Jews we are well aware of the concept of scapegoats since Jews historically have wrongfully been labeled scapegoats for many of the world’s ills. We must stop looking for a scapegoat to lay blame for the loss of members. Instead, the leaders of FHC (myself included), must admit that we have not done anything pro-actively to increase or even maintain the membership of FHC.

How can we, as leaders of FHC, sit on a large pot of money given to us by a shul that folded, kvetch about members leaving and not spend any of it on refurbishing the building and advertising FHC for its terrific Hebrew School, Egalitarian services, and the multitude of activities that we run throughout the year.

We need pro-active leadership, and we need it now.

While I am spread pretty thin right now, I make the following proposal. We should start a GrowFHC Committee which has as its reason for existence the growth of FHC.

The GrowFHC Committee will seek to advance the goals set forth in this blog. If anyone is interested in joining this committee they should contact me and we can present this proposal to the Board of Trustees of FHC. I need your help, since I simply cannot do this alone.

Let us GrowFHC for the future of Judaism in Northern Westchester. Let us stop wasting our time laying blame and use our energies to find solutions and be pro-active. Let's not be the next shul to fold!!!!!

Shalom. Jeremy