TORONTO — Beth Tzedec Congregation has become the third Toronto synagogue to end its affiliation with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ), retroactive to July 2007, following a vote by its board of governors last Thursday night.

A news release issued Friday by Beth Tzedec said that the needs of
“Canadian Conservative congregations will be better served by
allocating our resources directly toward local, provincial and national
programs and services.”

The news release affirmed the shul’s ongoing commitment to “Conservative Judaism in Canada, Israel (the Masorti Movement) and throughout the world, and to the ideology that recognizes the pluralistic framework of Conservative Judaism.”

Beit Rayim Synagogue, Beth David B’nai Israel Beth Am Synagogue, Beth Tikvah Synagogue and Shaar Shalom Synagogue have also had recent board or membership votes, but they aren’t leaving the movement.

The votes followed 15 months of negotiations between Toronto congregational representatives and the New York-based USCJ. An agreement was reached in early March and ratified March 16 by the USCJ, after which each shul scheduled their own ratification votes.

Gary Mansfield, a past shul president and the spokesperson for Beth Tzedec on this issue, told The CJN that the reason for the negotiations was “a feeling that Conservative Judaism was waning” in Toronto, based on an increasing number of unaffiliated families, reduced youth participation, reduced congregational school enrolment and decreasing membership numbers, particularly among young adults and young families. “The goal was to revitalize Conservative Judaism in Canada.”

But, he said, there was “virtually no money for programming,” because of the USCJ’s dues policy.

As Mansfield explained it, 55 cents of every dollar paid to the USCJ stays in New York to support the organization’s infrastructure. The other 45 cents supports local programming and initiatives, and underwrites expenses for the USCJ’s Canadian regional office in Toronto. The office has been without an executive director for the past year, but has a full-time youth director and executive secretary.

“For the last so many years the 45 cents has not been sufficient to run our own Canadian operation,” said Mansfield, who would not provide specific numbers about the amount of Beth Tzedec’s USCJ dues, but he confirmed that a synagogue half Beth Tzedec’s size would pay approximately $41,000 annually.

Under the terms of the deal, the United Synagogue would have provided $116,000 in discretionary funding to the region for the 2008-09 fiscal year. An additional $96,000 would be provided the following year, and $76,000 the year after.

In addition, the central body would create a “Canadian Public Policy and Social Action Committee” in response to complaints the organization doesn’t reflect Canadian priorities.

Among the reasons Mansfield cited for rejecting the agreement, he said it was only a temporary solution – “a small, inadequate Band-Aid on a large wound that was going to be removed anyway in three years.” He was involved in negotiating the deal, but was out of town for the final negotiations and did not sign off on the document.

Paul Kochberg, president of the USCJ’s Canadian region, told The CJN that of the organization’s 15 regions, the Canadian region is “the lowest paying region in terms of dues per family unit.”

He likens USCJ dues to synagogue dues, in that some congregants may also feel they don’t get value for their dollar, “but their dues are still needed in order to provide resources and professional staff.”

Kochberg said he was disappointed and saddened by the news of Beth Tzedec leaving.

Mansfield said the Beth Tzedec vote was “not unanimous, but certainly overwhelmingly positive in one direction.”

Because of the longstanding nature of the issue, there had been “a great deal” of discussion leading up to and on the night of last week’s board meeting, Mansfield said. Congregants wrote letters to the board both for and against leaving the USCJ.

In a sermon prior to the vote, Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl, TOP RIGHT, the congregation’s senior rabbi, argued strongly in favour of remaining within the umbrella organization, although he noted that there is “much that might be improved” in the USCJ.

He said that to leave the USCJ “is to send a message to our members that affiliation is only for what you get and the wealthier families (like the larger and more substantial congregations) should only look out for themselves.”

He also expressed concern that leaving the organization would “weaken the fabric of the Conservative movement,” and noted that the synagogue would lose access to services such as rabbinical, cantorial and educational placement services, United Synagogue Youth (USY) and Kadima youth programs, leadership training and educational ideas.  

Beth Tzedec’s USY group has “a very small number of members” and only one is scheduled to attend USY’s spring conclave, said Mansfield.

Rabbi Frydman-Kohl declined to comment for this article, but Mansfield said that he believes that despite their divergent ideas about leaving USCJ, he and the rabbi share “the same goals of promoting Conservative Judaism and furthering Conservative Judaism in our community and beyond.

“The lay leadership, having had many years of trying to promote change from within the organization, felt they had exhausted all their means of doing that,” Mansfield said. “It is relatively inactive, especially relative to the size of the synagogue.”

He said that more funding would allow the formerly USCJ-affiliated shuls to do things like assist small congregations that are starting up. “It’s not so much to keep more money in their own individual pockets.”

Also, he said, USCJ dues have risen every year for the past few years, and about 14 per cent in the past year alone.

Mansfield said the synagogues “hope to establish a vibrant and active [youth] program” that would include inter-synagogue programming.

He said that Beth Tzedec is “still a Conservative congregation” and would continue to support Conservative-related organizations such as the Jewish Theological Seminary, Camp Ramah, United Synagogue Day School and the Rabbinical Assembly.

The Conservative movement’s ideology did not enter into the synagogue’s decision, Mansfield said. “The policy of the group of Canadian synagogues is in keeping with the Conservative philosophy of pluralism. In the Conservative movement, there’s a wide spectrum of ideology.”

A letter was to be sent to Beth Tzedec members on Monday of this week to explain the new situation and invite them to the synagogue’s annual general meeting later this month to give learn more.