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Jessica Elsener יסכה's avatar

As someone who is proud to be a Masorti Jewish Transgender person, whom deeply cares about Halacha, and teaching what I consider to be important traditions to my daughter. I can't tell you how I appreciated reading this.

One can only write this, who is from this. Beautifully stated. I hope the tent becomes big again.

I am the kitchen maven at my shul, I keep it kosher, put out Kiddush lunch every Shabbat, help with community food events.

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Z.E. Silver's avatar

Thank you for saying this!!!

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Jill's avatar

Thank you for this article, Z.E. As someone raised in the conservative movement, had my Bat Mitzvah at a conservative synagogue, and still affiliates with that same congregation that no longer identifies as conservative, I have a few thoughts on this. I started to type them out here, but I think that they're so long they may necessitate their own article - so I might get to work on that. Thank you for bringing this issue to light!

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Z.E. Silver's avatar

I’m excited to read it!

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Thomas P. Balazs's avatar

I used to identify as Masorti, but that just meant I respected orthodox but didn’t live as Orthodox, kept a kippah in my glove compartment for Orthodox spaces, accepted that I wasn’t prepared to live to their standards, but didn’t question those standards per se. I would not have been comfortable with your version of it.

I see now there are two versions of it now, one which is basically rebranded Conservatism, the other more like I meant

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masortim

I think regardless of the name you’re going to run into the same problems of neither this nor that, but I don’t blame you for trying.

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Z.E. Silver's avatar

Appreciate the insightful comment!

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Screamsintothevoid's avatar

I love the rebrand idea to Masorti.

I actually think the Conservative movement will see an influx of Oct 8 Jews and Jews who have felt alienated by Reform Judaism and the left, when it comes to addressing antisemitism.

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Z.E. Silver's avatar

Exactly! But we have to be ready for it!

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Screamsintothevoid's avatar

I’m not sure the Chabad model of creating houses would be as successful, as there is already Moishe house which provides social events based out of houses for jewish young professionals. I would instead recommend Masorti shuuls reach out to Moishe houses and try to attach a house to their synagogue- perhaps by sponsoring a house in their city, which would then lead to having events both at the house and at the synagogue.

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Z.E. Silver's avatar

Mmm but moishe house serves a very specific purpose for a specific demographic. And honestly, moishe house doesn’t offer much spirituality.

The model of Chabad is about shrinking the size of the community, but keeping it diverse. Attaching Moishe Houses doesn’t help with alleviating the burden of a single rabbi serving a community of thousands.

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Screamsintothevoid's avatar

But isn’t the community that Moishe house serves the target demographic for ensuring that a synagogue continues to grow? Without YPs who might meet someone and get married and have kids, synagogues and other communities will die off. I thought the whole issue is that conservative synagogues don’t have enough members to stay afloat, if you don’t make yourself attractive to YPs and young families then you are unlikely to gain new members.

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Z.E. Silver's avatar

I think you’re assuming that it’s only young people who don’t find value in the synagogue. My own parents stopped paying for their membership because they found themselves only going on high holidays. Our longtime rabbi and cantor left. Just wasn’t their shul anymore.

Parents whose kids no longer want to participate post bar/bar mitzvah find themselves questioning the value of membership. The value proposition issue crosses all demographics.

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Screamsintothevoid's avatar

This is true, and every member matters, but YPs are the members most likely to create more members aka have kids. Maybe there’s a good argument that retired folks might recruit some of their friends to join. I just know as a YP synagogue leaders are always harping on how important of a demographic we are🤷🏻‍♀️

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Nick Bassett's avatar

"As opposed to a rabbi that has to serve 100 families with kids under the age of ten, imagine the attention they could give if they only had 25 families. A Masorti Jew is someone who is a) constantly looking for Jewish guidance and b) someone who doesn’t know much. Reform Jews (generally) don’t know much, but also don’t necessarily seek out answers in Judaism. Orthodox Jews always seek for the Jewish answer, but they already know how to find it. Masorti Jews are the ones who require the most individualized attention. Shrink the size of the community, make it tighter, and unite it around a rabbi that reflects the specific needs and wants, and see the magic unfold. "

I wish you every success with this, and the name change. It would be very positive I think.

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Z.E. Silver's avatar

Thank you!

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The Moderate Case's avatar

As someone who isn’t Jewish, I can’t speak from experience on this topic, but this is very well written and presented.

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Z.E. Silver's avatar

Thank you bro!

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Henry Sugar's avatar

Thanks for writing about this.

I'm on my local Conservative synagogue's Board, and we're grappling with all of the above right now. One macrosocial feature we're really bumping up against (which isn't doctrinal, but is important) is how much delayed family formation matters in changing synagogue dynamics. Rather than people coming to shul to find and form families, families are coming to shul for largely idiosyncratic reasons. That makes it harder both to integrate them, since they already have commitments and groups of friends before coming to shul, and harder to serve them since they need such different things.

It's not obvious what the solution is. Decentralization is probably part of the response, but I find it scary to contemplate.

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Z.E. Silver's avatar

This is SUCH a critical point!

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