The leaders of over 50 Reform congregations from around North America will gather in Colorado Springs this April to take part in The Synagogue as a Center for Healing and Caring, a two-day conference sponsored by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in association with the Kalsman Institute of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Participants will explore issues related to health, bereavement, and healing in the hopes of transforming their synagogues into warm, caring spaces where congregants can worship, celebrate, and mourn.
The conference, the third in a series of UAHC-sponsored seminars on healing and caring, will be held on April 22-23, 2001 at the Antlers Adam's Mark Hotel in downtown Colorado Springs. With workshops in areas such as mental health, eating disorders, self-destructive behaviors, helping those with special needs, and healing rituals and liturgies, the conference aims to give the clergy members and lay leaders in attendance the means to raise awareness of these areas in their own congregations.
Guided by a team of top-level Reform rabbis and professionals, participants will have the chance to share ideas, explore and discuss successful healing and caring programs currently in operation in UAHC synagogues, participate in panel discussions and workshops, and hear keynote addresses. The conference's facilitators and workshop leaders include:
- Rabbi William Cutter, Ph.D., Director of the Kalsman Institute on Judaism and Health and Professor at HUC-JIR in Los Angeles
- Rabbi Eric Weiss, Director of Ruach Ami: Bay Area Jewish Healing Center in San Francisco
- Rabbi Sue Ann Wasserman, Director of the UAHC's Department of Religious Living in New York
- Rabbi Karen Fox, Marriage and Family Therapist, Wilshire Boulevard Temple, Los Angeles
"The Synagogue as a Center for Healing and Caring will help raise awareness of issues that impact every family in every Reform congregation," says Rabbi Richard Address, Director of the UAHC's Department of Jewish Family Concerns, and one of the conference's organizers and facilitators. "Ultimately, this helps us strengthen the personal relationships which form the foundation of our congregational life."
Those seeking information can contact the UAHC's Department of Jewish Family Concerns by phone at (212) 650-4294, by fax at (212) 650-4239, and by e-mail at deptjewfamcon@uahc.org.