Canadian Council for Reform Judaism

MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR 

The CCRJ is here to serve you - our 26 Reform congregations from Victoria across Canada to Montreal.  We understand that the synagogue is at the very centre of Jewish life, transforming individual members into caring Jews and inspiring them to live Jewish lives.

Our goal is to provide leadership, vision and support to our congregations on a wide variety of issues and to provide opportunities for growth and development.  (Please “browse” our website and the URJ website: www.urj.org-  for the full-range of programs and services that we offer.)

As CCRJ President, Elliott Jacobson, writes in his column, in order to determine how to best serve our Canadian congregations, we have been facilitating focus groups with the boards and professional staff of our congregations (to date:  we’ve facilitated 18 focus groups and our goal is to hold one at each of our CCRJ congregations by the end of the summer of 2007).

We have done an analysis of the focus groups completed to date and issued a comprehensive report outlining the results. This report includes an “action plan” for the CCRJ staff, lay-leaders and congregational leadership for future directions.

I’d like to share some of the comments we’ve been hearing at ALL of the congregations – large, medium and small – so far:

General Comments Regarding Challenges That Congregations Face, No Matter What Their Size:

All congregations, no matter what their size, have expressed challenges in these areas:

  •       Funding/finances/fundraising
  •       Membership Recruitment/Retention
  •       Leadership Development/Recruitment
  •       Volunteer Burnout
  •       How to motivate congregants to participate in synagogue life
  •       Keeping youth and young adults involved
  •       Changing demographics
  •       Building/Facilities limitations
  •       Problems recruiting staff/paying staff salaries – competing with the US marketplace

General Comments Regarding The “Tools” that Congregations Require (that the CCRJ/URJ Can Provide) to Achieve their Goals, No Matter What their Size:

  •       Membership recruitment and retention
  •       Marketing/PR
  •       Leadership recruitment, retention and training
  •       Volunteer recruitment
  •       Fundraising
  •       Finances
  •       Addressing the needs of changing demographics
  •       Addressing the needs of our teens and University students
  •       Providing programming for 20’s/30’s
  •       Helping people see the congregation as a place for life-long membership
  •       Bringing new faces to programs
  •       A CCRJ Program Bank
  •       A CCRJ Idea Bank
  •       Using the CCRJ as a vehicle for bringing congregations together
  •       Problem of bringing US trained professional staff to Canada (can’t compete with US salaries)
  •       Reaching out to the unaffiliated
  •       (For congregations outside of GTA) Helping them feel connected to the GTA Reform community         

 

General Comments – “Common Threads”  - that All Congregations Agreed On Vis-à-vis a CCRJ Biennial:

  •       Keep costs down
  •       Provide subsidies
  •       Make it distinctly CANADIAN with a Canadian congregational agenda
  •       Have fabulous, high-profile CANADIAN speakers
  •       Great location
  •       Local location, easily accessible
  •       Great food
  •       Great music
  •       Valuable information that can be brought directly into the synagogue
  •       Education track is important
  •       Shorter timeframe

 

This is only a small sample of some of the information which we’ve gathered.  We have shared the focus group report with the congregational presidents and boards, and we continue to dialogue with our communities in order to set priorities and our agenda for the coming two years.

 

The process has been extremely beneficial in that it has already impacted on some of the decisions we’ve made regarding our most recent CCRJ Regional Biennial in Toronto this past November, 2006 and the upcoming joint CCRJ-URJ Pacific Northwest Council Biennial in Vancouver this coming March 2007.

 

The CCRJ 2006-2007 Biennial Season – An Experimental Biennial Season

In response to what our congregations have been saying at the focus groups, this year, we will be doing the following “experiment” for our Regional Biennial Season.  Some of the highlights:

  • We’re holding 2 biennials: an East-Coast Biennial (Nov. 10-11th, 2006) in Toronto; and a shared West-Coast Biennial (March 16-18, 2007) with the Pacific Northwest Region in Vancouver.  This is in direct response to our congregations from the western parts of Canada.
  • The time-frame for the Toronto Biennial was shortened:  it began promptly at 8:30 AM on Friday morning, and ended with Havdalah (no dinner) on Shabbat.  This was to address the request to:  “shorten the time-frame” and to “cut-costs”.  Additionally, all of the workshops and programming on the Friday took place at Temple Emanu-El in Toronto (another dual-purpose decision:  to highlight Temple Emanu-El and to save on hotel costs); while the programming on Saturday took  place at the hotel.
  • Along with the URJ/CCRJ and HUC-JIR speakers and presenters, we hosted The Hon. Bob Rae as our keynote speaker for Shabbat lunch – in direct response to requests for a “major Canadian figure”.  Bob was running for leadership of the Liberal Party at the time and it was a very interesting afternoon.
  • The workshop topics directly addressed the areas (above) highlighted by the focus groups.  Additionally, there was a highly successful  study-track throughout.
  • We focused on the issue of Darfur for Social Action by bringing in one of the “Lost Boys of the Sudan” – Daniel Akech James.  He co-presented at a workshop on Friday afternoon and was our keynote speaker at Shabbat services Friday night.  His participation was one of the most moving aspects of the Biennial.
  • ARZA Canada sponsored Israeli professor Paul Liptz to speak at our Erev Shabbat dinner:  Paul’s discussion about Israel was insightful, provocative and engaging – and left everyone wanting more.  ARZA Canada then sent Paul on a “whirlwind tour” of Canada to speak about Israel at our Reform congregations in: Toronto, Mississauga, Montreal, London, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver
  • After Havdalah on Saturday evening , we ended with a CCRJ board dinner, followed by a CCRJ/URJ/Camp George Leadership breakfast with Rabbi Lennard Thal to discuss fundraising in the Reform Movement in Canada.

By all accounts, this November Biennial was our “best Biennial ever!”  The feedback has been extremely positive and wonderful.

 

 

The March 16-18, 2007 Biennial in Vancouver:  “The Art of Jewish Living:  Weaving the Tapestry of Our Lives”– will be equally engaging, energizing and wonderful.  For a full schedule for this biennial, please visit the URJ’s Pacific Northwest Region’s website:  www.urj.org/pnwc/biennial

 

Watch this space for more information about our plans for our 2008 Biennial/Meeting season – I will keep you informed!

 

L’Shalom,

 



 

Rabbi Sharon L. Sobel
Executive Director

 

 

 

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