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September 15, 2000/15 Elul 5760, Vol. 52, No.53
Funders ruffle rabbinic feathers
JULIE WIENER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
CHICAGO - The details about North America's latest Jewish mega-philanthropy unfolded a bit like a mystery drama in which the detective begins the closing scene with, "You're probably wondering why I've brought you all together here tonight."
Three weeks before Rosh Hashana, three of American Jewry's wealthiest donors brought a handpicked group of 150 Jewish leaders to a "summit" in Chicago, put them up in a downtown hotel for a busy 26 hours and waited until the last hour to announce their plans: to invest $18 million during the next five years to "help achieve systemic change of the synagogue."
The Synagogue Transformation and Renewal triumvirate of businessmen-turned-philanthropists Edgar Bronfman, Charles Schusterman and Michael Steinhardt, will concentrate their funding on:
- Awarding $500,000 per year in challenge grants for "innovative approaches" to synagogue issues;
- creating a program to train synagogue consultants;
- convening meetings for congregational leaders from all denominations;
- advocating Jewish federations and other philanthropies to increase funding for synagogues; and
- using new technology such as videoconferencing and the Internet to offer professional development courses for rabbis.
Founded last December, STAR has held smaller regional conferences and conducted research, but its precise direction had been under wraps until the Sept. 6-7 event.
It was an ingathering of thinkers from rarely intersecting American Jewish worlds. While representatives of the four major streams of Judaism and a handful of federation folks were present, participants also included: gay and lesbian rabbis, Jewish Renewal leaders, proponents of Jewish meditation, people from organizations reaching out to intermarried couples.
Despite the diversity, men outnumbered women by a ratio of roughly 2-1, and there were a few glaring absences: cantors and grass-roots synagogue lay leaders.
By the end of the first night many were angered and frustrated by the funders' blunt - and, according to some, ignorant - criticisms of synagogue life.
"This is some very well-meaning people tripping over every buzzword in the Jewish world without providing any focus or direction," said Rami Shapiro, a Miami rabbi who runs a Jewish Web site www.simply jewish.com.
Shapiro was on his way out of a session in which Steinhardt had called the Reform and Conservative movements "accidents of history," and Bronfman - after stating that "rabbis don't own synagogues" - explained that he finds it more spiritually meaningful to perform the Havdalah ceremony on Sunday nights, when he returns from his country home, than at the actual conclusion of Shabbat.
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