I know a young woman in San Francisco who is Jewish and black. She is not Ethiopian, she was not adopted by her parents, she is not a Jew-by-choice. She has been a Jew every minute of her life. She grew up in a Jewish home and went to religious school and Jewish camps. She was Bat Mitzvah. As an adult she crossed the country for her first job and joined a synagogue. Every time she reads from the Torah, she is asked by quizzical congregants at her new congregation how it is that she knows Hebrew so well.
We now know from the National Jewish Population Study that a tenth of Jews are Jews of color: Black, Asian or Hispanic. Jews of color are our partners and our children, they are the partners of our children and our parents and our siblings. They are Jewish professionals, administrators, cantors and rabbis.
When we see African Americans, Latinos and Asians walk through our synagogue doors we must not assume they are people who work for the Bar Mitzvah family. It is time to start assuming they are Jews!
This is about changing assumptions. Our inner picture of a Jew needs radical correction. It is about making the invisible, visible.
We must educate our communities about the Jewish diversity in our own synagogues. One congregation made a photo collage of the membership with short stories of each member's Jewish journey. Each month more photos and stories were added. It became a gathering place before meetings and services as members read stories of people they didn't know and made discoveries about people they had known for years.
The religious school children insisted on their own photo exhibit with their stories displayed prominently in the school wing.
The bonus was that anyone entering the building was greeted by the smiling faces of the congregants: old and young, white, black, Asian and Latino singles and families large and small.
Now I know that I am preaching to the choir, but despite all the braggadocio the Reform Jewish community has about how much we've grown, we have not done a very good job of being welcoming. The National Jewish Population Study tells us that less than half of adult Jews belong to synagogues. Yes, I know that most of those (39%) belong to Reform synagogues and we deserve to pat ourselves on the back for being better than the other movements but no one should feel satisfied or good when they realize that the other half are not in a synagogue.
Did you know that The Jewish Outreach Institute Study tells us that 66% of intermarried couples are unaware of any welcoming program at a synagogue? 66%! And 50%, a full half of those couples, say they would be interested in going to such a program. That is a lot of potential members we are missing!
As Jewish leaders and professionals, we have betrayed a sacred trust. No legal justification for any commandment in the Torah is mentioned more times than "because you were strangers in Egypt." We Jews are supposed to know what it feels like. Yet our advertisements and our programming focus on only a small segment of those who could be part of our community.
Think about the people photographed in your bulletin, on your website and in your ads. Too many synagogues inadvertently exclude potential members with thinking that is dated; picturing only middle and upper middle class, white, Ashkenazi, heterosexual, married families with children as their target population.
And yes, I know the retort that 80% of those who are not members at the time of the NJPS study have been or will be part of a synagogue at some time. And we all know when that time is--the three years leading up to their child's Bar Mitzvah. So we do have them as members for a while. But not because they want to be part of our community. They come only to get a service that we provide and then they leave having confirmed for themselves that synagogues have nothing else that they want or need.
I fear that many if not most of these people are leaving because they do not feel personally recognized, personally cared for or believe anyone cares (beyond the loss of dues) that they leave the synagogue.
We miss an opportunity to integrate new members when we have nothing and do nothing that incorporates them into the community once they have joined. People need more than announcements of classes and events to feel like they are a part of the community.
Every synagogue has a culture with traditions and rules of behavior. It takes time and personal connections for new members to truly join the social fabric and absorb the culture of the synagogue community.
Send to Friend
Save To My Profile
