Beth Judah Retreat Meeting Scheduled for April 27, 2014

COURT HOUSE — The reasons that brought people to synagogues for the last 50 years are fading—nostalgia, the sights and sounds of childhood, the Eastern European grandparent, the Holocaust and anti-Semitism. The ethnic sense of Judaism that sustained synagogues during the 20th century is rapidly vanishing.
Across the country, in congregations large and small, synagogues are struggling with the fact that people are turning away from communal organizations. Inundated with options in secular and Jewish life, people are disengaging in record numbers due to ridged boundaries, entrenched hierarchies, complex bureaucracies, lack of spiritual significance, etc. The recent Pew Institute Report (which can be accessed on-line), addressing the issue of declining synagogue membership nationally and locally has been not only the “hot” topic of conversation throughout American Synagogues but a catalyst for action. Synagogues that are fiercely imaginative and willing to take risks to engage Jews deeply and meaningfully are creating new models and reinvigorating old ones.
Beth Judah, the only active synagogue in Cape May County, is facing these challenges and to that end has formed a Long Term Planning Committee called BJ Kehilla (community in Hebrew) 2014 to develop a strategic plan of action that will define who we are as a congregation, who we want to be and what steps we must take to achieve our goals. We know that the synagogue must change in order to grow, keep pace with the changing Jewish population and demographics as well as service the needs of the Jews of Cape May County.
In order to accomplish this, we need to understand the aspirations and concerns of our members and our Jewish non-members in order to create a shared sense of purpose and goals for building Beth Judah’s future. To that end, we are holding a day long retreat on April 27, 2014 at the Beth Judah Social Hall, Spencer and Pacific Avenues in Wildwood from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Breakfast and Lunch will be served. The input we get from this retreat will give us a common language that we can use in leading and managing Beth Judah and securing our future as a Jewish community of the 21st century.
We invite unaffiliated Jews in Cape May County, Jews by choice, secular Jews, interfaith couples, couples considering interfaith marriage, relatives of interfaith couples, Jews who respect Jewish traditions, beliefs and culture and those who do not, Jews by default (Jewish only because they were born to a Jewish mother), BuJews, Jewish atheists, educated but without faith Jews, Reform Jews, Conservative Jews, Orthodox Jews, Modern Orthodox Jews and those who do not identify themselves as any of the above to participate in this retreat. Jews are, after all, an extended family; we are all the descendants of Abraham. It matters not how you practice or what you know.
For further information or to sign up for the retreat, please email bjwildwoodkehillah2014@gmail.com or call the synagogue at 609-522-7541 and leave a message for Pauline.