the early childhood center and membership more attractive is paying off,” he says. ♦♦♦ In 2011, four young mothers, all friends and members of 1,000-family Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley, Massachusetts (tbewellesley.org), held an informal brainstorming meeting around one of their kitchen tables. With the exception of the congregation’s Tot Shabbats, they felt there were not enough temple activities for families like themselves with young children, and they were determined to change that. The four mothers devised Shir Shabbat, a Sabbath celebration program of singing and dancing for parents and children, open to members and prospective members alike. To pay for the professional entertainment, each woman chipped in $250. In the beginning, only a dozen families participated in the monthly Tot Shabbat program. Now the Tot Shabbat and Shir Shabbat programs each attract three dozen families curious enough about the congregation to spend a Friday night or Saturday morning there. A bagel brunch extends the experience. Shir Shabbat’s success prompted TBE to form a “Families with Young Children” committee that “gives our demographic a voice at the table,” says committee co-chair Michelle Black (photo #2), one of the original four mothers. As a result, the congregation hired a family educator to implement such programs as Katan Gadol, featuring play, songs, stories, and Shabbat snacks for parents and children ranging from 15 months to age 2½; Tikkun for Tots, a social action program for parents and their children; the 10-week course “Parenting through a Jewish Lens” co-sponsored by the local federation; and supervised babysitting during Friday night services, among others. With the addition of Fall Family Funfest, a working moms program,
and group study with the rabbi and cantor, something’s now going on every weekend at TBE for families with young children. “There is a general buzz in and outside the temple about our programs for young families,” Black says, “and it’s had a substantial impact on membership.” Over the past year, of the 97 new families who have joined the congregation, 40 of them are families with young children, and more are likely to become temple members as their tots enter kindergarten. ♦♦♦ In 2010, having learned from several young couples that the few Jewish daycare facilities nearby had waiting lists, Margie Zeskind (photo #3), director of early childhood education at Temple Beth Sholom in Miami Beach (tbsmb.org), approached the board of the 800-family congregation with a proposal. Since the early 1950s the congregation had been home to the Foundation School, a preschool program for ages 2 to 5. Zeskind believed TBS needed to take the Foundation School in a new direction. “If you get young Jewish families into infant care, then they become a part of a Jewish community right from the start,” she told the board. “If these families have to find childcare outside the Jewish world, we may never get them back. We have an opportunity to nurture their Judaism.” She proposed adding an infant/ childcare center to the Foundation School, and in 2011 the board agreed. Two schoolrooms were converted to serve the new population of children 8 weeks old to toddler, and this September the center opened along with the Foundation School. This year the school/center’s combined enrollment of 210 children exceeds last year’s by more than 10%, and the center’s eight-baby “infant room” is filled. Young moms and dads who enroll a child in the center receive free temple membership. Zeskind continued on next page reform judaism
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QUOTABLE from p. 50 Strive for Belonging, Not Membership “In American Grace, an examination of religion in America, scholars Robert Putnam and David Campbell note that it is worse to be a worshiper with no friends than to have no membership at all. ‘A person who attends church regularly but has no close friends there is actually unhappier than her demographic twin who doesn’t attend church at all... and religious friendship seems supercharged [as a determiner of happiness].’ There is evidence that there is special benefit to friendships forged and maintained in an atmosphere of shared spiritual search and tradition. Anyone who has ever watched or been the person alone at an oneg knows how lonely it can be in purportedly sacred space. The person who feels she has no friends here may even be a member of the congregation, but doesn’t feel she belongs. People will give up memberships when they are assessing financial and time commitments. They will not so easily dispense with belonging—the ubiquitous yearning to feel loved, needed, and connected to others through shared values and purpose. Belonging is about the answers to questions such as, ‘Who hears my voice? Who would truly miss me as an individual if I were not here? Whose faces light up when I arrive? Who will help me when I am dejected and discouraged? Who needs what I have to offer?’ It enables us to feel, in some way, at home in the world. We must raise the question about whether congregations and Jewish communal organizations are currently serving sufficiently as places to nourish relationships that offer such a deep sense of belonging.” —Rabbi Edythe Held Mencher, The Reform Jewish Quarterly, CCAR Press, Summer 2012
winter 2012
9/28/12 6:41 AM