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February 9, 2001/Shevet 16, 5761, Vol. 53, No.19
STAR finds its first lights in synagogues, homes
JULIE WIENER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - In the past decade, Rabbis Laurie Rutenberg and Gary Schoenberg have hosted more than 7,000 unaffiliated Jews for Shabbat and holiday meals in their Portland, Ore., home.
Through Gesher, an organization they founded, the Reform-trained rabbis demonstrate home holiday observance and teach families how to bring rituals and traditions into their homes.
Now, with two local congregations - a Conservative one and a more traditional one - they will be training people who are active synagogue members to host less-involved families from their own congregations.
The new project aims to create "a deeper sense of belonging to the synagogue community and shift the view of synagogue membership from a kind of service that you pay for to a partnership in creating community," said Schoenberg.
With a grant for $50,000, the Portland project, called Restoring the Holiness of Community, is one of 25 new efforts to benefit from STAR, a new $18-million philanthropy that hopes to help synagogues reach - and positively impact - more American Jews.
STAR, which stands for Synagogue Transformation and Renewal, is allocating a total of $565,750 this year, in amounts ranging from $10,000 to $50,000.
The philanthropy, one of several new initiatives focusing on synagogue transformation, was founded in December 1999 by mega-donors Charles Schusterman, Michael Steinhardt and Edgar Bronfman.
Although Schusterman died in late December, and the organization has not yet found an executive director, STAR is nonetheless moving forward with the projects it announced at a special gathering in September.
In addition to awarding grants, it also is meeting with leaders of the religious movements to determine whether their synagogues need consultants to help them improve, and if so, how best to train them.
STAR is also bringing together a group of 25 rabbis to design something called Star Tech, Internet-based professional development courses for rabbis.
For both the consultants and the Internet project, STAR will work closely with the religious movements and not compete with services they already offer, Cardin said.
That approach may in part be an effort to overcome some bad feelings that surfaced at STAR's summit for a hand-picked group of 150 Jewish leaders, when Steinhardt ruffled feathers with a declaration that the Reform and Conservative movements were "accidents of history."
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