[Inion ofAmerican Hebre'w Congregations Patron of Hebrew Union ·College Jewish Institute, of Religion Long Range Planning Committee • PILOT PROJECT FOR SYNAGOGUE CHANGE , . REFORM IS A VERB Notes on Reform and Reforming Jews by Leonard J. Fein Robert Chin Jack Dauber Bernard Reisman Herzl Spiro • 1. Preface 2. Acknowledgements 3. Table of Contents • The Pilot Project for Synagogue Change I is under the professional direction of Dr. Leonard J. Fein, in association with TDR Associates, Inc. It is under the auspices of the Long Range Planning Committee of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. August, 1971 Union of A merican Hebrew Congregations Pa.tron of Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion Long Range Planning Committee Alan V. Iselin - Albany, N.Y; Chairman Alfred Eisenpreis - New York, N.Y. Vice-Chairman Sherman N. Baker - Worcester, Mass. Stanley Beskind - Westport, Conn. Richard N. Bluestein - Denver, Colo. Sandford F. Borins - Toronto, Can. James E. Cafritz - Bethesda, Md. John C. Colman - Glencoe, Ill. Robin Farkas - New York, N.Y. Henry Fleming - Montreal, Can. Alan M. Fortunoff - Old Westbury, N.Y. Ira Gissen - Teaneck, N.J. Albert Goldberg - Rochester, N.Y. Rabbi Samuel E. Karff - Chicago, Ill. Richard D. Kaufmann - Washington, D.C. David M. Levitt - Great Neck, N.Y. Rabbi Eugene J. Lipman - Washington, D.C. William S. Louchheim,Jr. - Beverly Hills, Calif. Kenneth J. Luchs - Washington, D.C. Donald R. Mintz - New Orleans, La. Mrs. Arthur Newmyer - l~ashington, D. C. Dan Rodgers - New York, N.Y. Harold Rosen - Louisville, Ky. Alexander Ross - New York, N.Y. J. Victor Samuels - Houston, Texas Richard J. Scheuer - Larchmont, N.Y. Jerald Schutzbank - Beverly Hills, Calif. L. William Spear - Newton, Mass. Ex-Officio: Earl Morse, Chairman of Board of Trustees, UAHC Rabbi Maurice N. Eisendrath, President, UAHC Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler, Vice President, UAHC UAHC Coordinator: Julian Feldman, Director of Resources Planning PREFACE This is the report of a unique project. It began in 1969, when the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, in anticipation of its centen­ nial anniversary (in 1973), appointed a Long Range Planning Committee. The Committee, which includes lay and professional leaders of Reform Judaism, was asked to develop an appropriate set of activities to mark the impending celebration. Very early in its deliberations, the Committee decided to concen­ trate its efforts on the future, rather than the past, of Reform Judaism. This decision grew out of a recognition that it was inappropriate for a religious movement, and especially one which has traditionally viewed it­ self as innovative, to be content with recalling past success, and also out of the belief that the present situation of Reform Judaism -- as, again, of religion in general -- hardly justified the diversion of energy and resources an exclusively commemorative tone would demand. In addition, the very name of the Committee implied a rather different mandate. Perhaps, then, the hundredth anniversary of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations might be seen as a time to derive the inspiration, courage, and wisdom that the second hundred years clearly require. With this thought in mind, a series of exploratory conversations between representatives of the Union and of the Committee and Leonard J. Fein,. then the Associate Director of the M.I.T.-Harvard Joint Center for Urban Studies, and its Director of Research (now of Brandeis University), as well as an active student of Jewish affairs, were initiated. In those early conversations-, an elaborate study of the future, and the changes in the environment that lay in store for Reform Judaism, was contemplated. It soon became evident that solid information on the future was too scarce to depend upon. And it was also felt that dependence on such material for charting one's own future, even were it amply available, was too passive a stance to satisfy the felt need. The focus then shifted to the Reform temple, to its capacity to survive, and, hopefully, to thrive, in a necessarily uncertain future. Were temples sufficiently flexible and sufficiently imaginative to cope, or were changes in their mode of operation indicated? But to ask whether temples could stay, or become, relevant through the closing decades of this century required that a measure of relevance be developed. In the end, it was not the future which Reform temples would be required to serve, but their members. And little, it was felt, was known re­ garding the actual hopes and fears, the beliefs, the concerns, the aspirations of Reform Jews as Jews. If the purpose of the temple was to help its members to fulfill themselves as Jews, it was clear that more needed to be known about the goals of its members. Accordingly, it was felt, a survey of members would be a useful basis on which to build. Preface - 2 \ But a survey alone was, again, too passive. The last thing the Committee wanted was yet another research report that would be consigned to dusty library shelves. Moreover, many people felt that a survey would only confirm what was already, in large measure, known -- that most Jews had a very unclear sense of Judaic possibility, and that to ask them what it was they wanted their temples to do and to make it possible for them to do would be to ask quest'cons few would find it easy to answer. The real question, the participants began to realize, was whether we were i.nterested i.n taking the present behaviors of either temples or their members as fixed, or whether we might not explore the possibility of initiating something of a revolution, a revolution of rising Judaic aspirations. At this point, the conversations were broadened to include senior members of TDR Associates, a young consulting firm which specializes in group dynamics and organizational development, as well as in social scientific re­ search. The question put to TDR was whether working with small groups, it would be possible to develop a method for encouraging people to set goals for themselves as Jews. If that were possible, then one could more comfortably proceed to the next question, which asks whether the temple is adequately prepared to help people reach those goals. In turning to a professional consulting firm, the Committee was de­ parting from the conventional. It was clear that TDR was not prepared to assert the actual goals towards which Reform Jews ought to strive. It was, ( instead, prepared to assist people in clarifying their own goals, and in de­ veloping ways of meeting them. Such a procedure necessarily involved a cal­ culated risk, since it might develop that the goals that were identified would be narrow and unimaginative, or that they might be subversive of the temple, or even that not enough people could be found who would be prepared to contemplate the possibility of setting themselves goals as Jews. The Union was prepared to undertake these risks, and it endorsed the TDR plan to engage in a series of temple-based workshops designed to have people confront themselves as actual Jews and as potential Jews. These work­ shops, together with the survey of temple members, were seen as the first steps in a longer program of renewal and revitalization to which the Committee was, and remains, committed. What follows is a report of these two endeavors. Part I is a report of the survey and its findings; Part II is a detailed description of the tech­ niques which were devised in the course of eighteen weekend workshops which were held in six different temples. Part III provides a summary reflection on the total findings. The Long Range Planning Committee 'is proud to claim responsibility for the project; responsibility for the contents of this report lies, of course, with Dr. Fein and his associates in TDR. ALAN ISELIN, Cha irman, UAHC Long Range / Planning Committee , ALEXANDER M. SCHINDLER, Vice President, UAHC LEONARD J. FEIN, Project Director ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In an early meeting with the members of the Long Range Planning Committee, I observed that undertaking this project involved a good deal of personal risk for me. I had spent a fair amount of time, over the past several years, talking with American Jews across the country, chiefly from lecture platforms. In that context, it was rather easy to be wise. But now I was being asked to translate rhetorical formulations into programs for action. The distance between me and my audience would shrink, and nice words would no longer suffice. I was not sure that such reputation for wisdom as I had attained could survive this more intense .form of interac­ tion. Others, of course, will have to judge the issue of reputation. For myself, I feel bound to say that I had not imagined how rewarding the experience would be. The lecture platform, no matter how crowded the audi­ torium, is a lonely place, and the lecture, no matter how eloquent, a neces­ sarily superficial form of communication. The LRPC project permitted, in­ deed, required, extensive personal interaction and communication, and what­ ever the benefits others have gained from our meetings, as we have tried to learn fram one another and to touch one another, I have learned, and been touched. Some of what I have learned is contained in the pages that follow, some has yet to be distilled into communicable words. One lesson that I think wants notice at the very outset is that it simply will not do to sup­ pose that Reform Judaism is the Judaism of the indolent, or of the thought­ less, or of those who do not care. It is conventional, in some quarters, to sneer at Reform in some such terms.