Beth Tzedec rejoins United Synagogue umbrella

Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl

TORONTO — Six years after deciding to end its affiliation with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Beth Tzedec Congregation’s board of directors voted unanimously to have the movement’s largest shul rejoin the umbrella group of North American Conservative congregations.

“USCJ has undergone major, major changes to make it more efficient, a more service-oriented organization, giving back value to its member congregations, meaningful resources… doing things in a more streamlined, more efficient fashion and I think on their end, they’re being more careful with their dollars,” said Carolyn Kolers, immediate past president of Beth Tzedec, explaining the reason behind this decision.

“They underwent a major transition transformation, new leadership, a new executive director, new mission statement, and a new strategic plan.”

The vote took place at Beth Tzedec’s board meeting in June, and the 22-member board voted unanimously to have its more than 5,000 congregants rejoin the USCJ.

Although Kolers cited “structural problems within USJC itself” as the main reason Beth Tzedec chose to leave the New-York based organization in 2008, the synagogue’s senior rabbi, Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl, said financial issues were also a concern.

“There was primarily an issue of finance and also a question of whether the congregational organization of United Synagogue was functioning at a maximum level of effectiveness,” Rabbi Frydman-Kohl said.

Gary Mansfield, Beth Tzedec’s former shul president, told The CJN in 2008 that there was “virtually no money for programming,” because more than half the dues went toward supporting USCJ’s infrastructure.

Rabbi Frydman-Kohl said despite concerns about the organization’s structure and its fees, the decision to leave USCJ in 2008 was not unanimous.

“There was always a recognition that the values of the congregation coincided with the values of United Synagogue. There was a question about whether it was of value to us to be a member,” he said.

But in the years since, USCJ has reinvented itself, Rabbi Frydman-Kohl said.

“It went through a period of tremendous reflection and re-engineering with a much more focused mission and much clearer sense of what it can and will do for congregations,” he said.

Both Kolers and the rabbi wouldn’t reveal how much Beth Tzedec will be paying in annual fees to USCJ, but Rabbi Steven Wernick, USCJ’s CEO, explained that the fees are based on a “per capita system… that gets adjusted for certain circumstances.”

“We have worked something out that we believe is fair and reasonable. It works within their structure and it works within our structure,” Kolers added.


 

Beth Tzedec in 1955

 


 

Around the same time Beth Tzedec left USCJ in 2008, two other Toronto congregations, Adath Israel Congregation and Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue left USCJ and helped form a new organization, the Canadian Council of Conservative Synagogues (CCCS).

Beth Tzedec left the CCCS in 2010, citing budgetary reasons, but Adath Israel and Beth Emeth are still members , along with a number of other previously unaffiliated Toronto congregations and one in Ottawa.

In late 2012, Beth Tikvah Synagogue in Toronto also left USCJ, saying it wasn’t using any of the umbrella group’s services. It’s currently independent.

Rabbi Wernick said USCJ has been focusing its effort in recent years on appealing to Canadian congregations and is thrilled to have Beth Tzedec back.

“I think it’s a vote of confidence in the renewal of the organization that we’ve been working on. Their process was very thoughtful and it was not a foregone conclusion. It was two years in the making of relationship building and so forth,” he said.

Kolers said she met with Rabbi Wernick a few times “to talk about the new USCJ and what resources they would offer us and what it meant to be part of something internationally focused on the future of Conservative Judaism.”

Rabbi Wernick said having North America’s largest Conservative congregation rejoin the USCJ is beneficial to the movement.

“They recognize that as the largest Conservative congregation in the hemisphere, they weren’t playing a role in the significant conversations of the movement and in the representation that the movement had on the world stage. For example, United Synagogue has the largest constituent organization of Conservative Jewry in the entire world [and it] plays a meaningful role… They wanted to be represented. They wanted to have a voice,” he said.

“They wanted to be part of a process by which they both learned from others that are facing similar challenges, but also contribute their own expertise and have larger conversations about the revitalization of congregations in the 21st century.”