In an effort to encourage innovation among its congregations, the United Synagogue is offering matching funding to creative projects. Since the establishment of the Community Development Fund in 2016, it has supported 12 schemes, committing a total of £250,000. It has now agreed to contribute £84,000 to a further six ventures.
The idea is to enable congregations to “do shul differently”, engaging with members in ways beyond the purely religious.
US director of strategy Jo Grose says the latest tranche of projects include Woodside Park Synagogue’s Generation to Generation research study, the idea of congregant and women’s historian Michelle Rosenberg.
It will enable congregants to work with a professional genealogist to trace important women in their own families — and also Jewish women who have made an impact on history.
Mrs Rosenberg says her daughter’s batmitzvah brought home to her “that as women, we couldn’t follow the service well and didn’t feel as if we were being represented, or had opportunities to feel a part of the community.
“I thought this would be an amazing opportunity to get families to work together and get excited about [the contribution of] Jewish women.”
Having received £3,000 from the CDF, Mrs Rosenberg wants to showcase the findings in an exhibition at the synagogue “so it’s made available to everyone”.
She also hopes that women involved in the project will deliver brief talks about their discoveries over the course of several months. “I think this will help women to feel part of the service and give them more of a voice.”
She credits both the shul’s chairman, Steven Woolf, and the US for “their tremendous support”.
A project green-lighted last year is the Richmond Jewish Community Hub. Richmond Synagogue’s Rabbi Meir Shindler says its aim is to create a mini community centre for South-West London Jewry where “even those who aren’t members of Richmond can come together and engage in social and cultural activities”.
These already include a weekly yoga class, a monthly film club, a mums and tots group, poetry nights and monthly lectures.
In a bid to make the hub self-sufficient, users are charged a fee.
Rabbi Shindler is keen for activities to cover the age spectrum. “We want to incorporate a Sunday fun day once a month for young families, a lunch and learn for those who are retired, painting sessions and art therapy.
“The hub is for people who are nervous to walk into shul. Our doors are open to anybody, Jews and non-Jews alike.”
There is also the hope that hub users will feel moved to become Richmond members.
Outside of London, Birmingham Central Synagogue — which affiliated to the US last year — has secured CDF backing for a commercial enterprise. Shul chair Geoffrey Clements explains that after a downsizing and modernisation, the realisation dawned that it would be “highly profitable to use the space for events that happened when services were not”.
It is now a conference venue for organisations including the NHS and HMRC, as well as for more standard hires, such as simchahs. Mr Clements says the five-figure grant from the US was pivotal. “We really needed to hire a full-time person to co-ordinate events, do the marketing etc, but we just weren’t in that position. We had become a loss-making community.”
On the back of the US grant, the shul engaged a conference centre and community events manager, Karin Malol, and its financial position has been transformed.
“We can generate around £1,500-£2,000 worth of profit per conference,” Mr Clements reports.
“Though it’s still early days for us, we are planning on holding three conferences a month. If we do, we will be able to generate the profit we need to become self-funded.
“We are incredibly excited about this opportunity. There are other communities that have under-used buildings. We can be a model for them.”
For Ms Grose, the beauty of the scheme is that it encourages congregations to think big. There is also the benefit of sharing ideas. “We can see that something works and then recommend it to other communities.”
And where “communities have limited funds or smaller membership, we lower our requirement for matched funding. The last thing we want is for a successful initiative to end.”
She adds that grants are for more than one year “as we wish to use them to enable long-term change.
“However, progress is reviewed regularly and if a project is not demonstrating success, we will discuss adapting it, changing course or winding it down.”
