Synagogue Funding

The STAR focus groups also revealed that synagogue leaders feel financially trapped and strapped. Many rabbis and lay leaders argue that they are committed to new visions of their own synagogue, acknowledge that the majority of their membership [to say nothing of the majority of American Jews who are unaffiliated at any one time] are not being served, and would welcome innovations which would inspire, engage, and educate. The limitation is money.

There is much to be said and written about this question, but the underlying issue is that synagogues are now like private clubs. Their membership determines what they do, how much they will pay, and what services they will provide. Far too many exist on the backs of their supplementary schools, culminating in bar/bat mitzvah. I address this question below, but this financial dependence overwhelms any objective planning.

It is time to deconstruct the funding question as well. We must revisit the question of the synagogue as a membership organization. Perhaps synagogues should be viewed as one of the panoply of Jewish institutions which are under the auspices of a central funding and planning body. This would allow numerous new possibilities which are quite difficult in the current funding structure.

Community wide membership, applicable to any of the synagogues.

Community wide educational offerings [with tracks to accommodate denominational demands]

Facility planning in coordination with other institutions in the community - to ensure that there is some relationship of space to real need

Various service and prayer offerings which transcend the approach or style of any one synagogue

Efficiencies of "back-office" services such as data base management, purchasing, etc.

It is my belief that the gross national synagogue budget is probably adequate to serve the needs, but that the tradition of the fully independent synagogue [based on the Protestant Free Church tradition] means dollars are not as effectively used as they might be. Obviously this approach might have tradeoffs of autonomy but could pay for itself in increased quality and innovation. And more coordinated planning might well engage more of those for whom the current synagogue is simply too intimidating or alienating.

In proposing this neo-kehillah model, I do so with caution. Centralized planning can squelch creativity and innovation. One would not want to lose the entrepreneurial spirit which leads to experimentation of size, structure, or style. Most innovation emerges outside the mainstream, becomes successful or fails, and then is co-opted or adapted. A centralized membership and planning model must account for and even encourage these ventures.

But such a model would go a long way to address an endemic problem - that every synagogue now feels that it must now turn beyond its membership to raise funds to do its work. There is something wrong if the basic organizational model of this crucial institution cannot pay for itself. Having headed a foundation committed to the renaissance of Jewish life, I can attest to the number of synagogues which have tried to obtain funding for their "unique" funding problem. But foundations view synagogues as local, so all such proposals are rejected. The more proposals I read, the more convinced I became that the model itself needs to change.

Perhaps there is another funding model besides the neo-kehillah model which I propose. But one thing is certain - the current model is not up to the task at hand and requires a radical re-think, not simply tampering.