This year's conference will cover topics that address the need to balance maintaining a strong congregation for today while leading change for the future, plus the dilemma of dealing with the urgency of the pandemic and long-term challenges to congregations.

On Sunday morning, the Reform Jewish Movement lost one of our giants. Rudi E. Scheidt Sr. was 95 years old when he died peacefully at home in Memphis, TN.

For congregational presidents and presidents-elect the learning doesn’t stop with Biennial. The next stop? The URJ Scheidt Seminar for Presidents and Presidents-Elect.

February is a time we especially foster leadership at the Union for Reform Judaism, shining a light on the role individuals play to strengthen our sacred community.

Listening to fellow presidents at the Scheidt seminar share many of the same concerns I have, I knew I’d enjoy being part of such an articulate, open, and friendly group.

Learn some of the most valuable takeaways from my tenure as a congregation president so you can apply them – in whatever ways work for you – in your own community.

Here are four key concepts that all leaders – lay or professional, emerging or experienced – need to embrace.

My time at the URJ Scheidt Seminar proved useful not only for the validation and nuts-and-bolts advice so necessary to a new congregational president, but also, to my surprise, in connecting aspects of my life, my Jewish identity, and my parents’ tragic histories.