Jews in South Need Rabbis’ Resources

For Jewish life in the Deep South to overcome the twin
plagues of attrition and assimilation, American Jewish culture must change,
argues Macy Hart, executive director of the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute for
Southern Jewish Life.

Rabbinical seminaries, large congregations and established
Jewish communities with rabbis and other Jewish professionals must “think
outside the box” and offer resources to Jews with fewer opportunities, he said.

As he works to improve cultural, educational and religious
offerings to Jews in 12 Southern states, Hart is asking national rabbinic
leaders to be generous with their resources in the short term, in hopes of
making long-term gains.

Specifically, he urges:

The posting of newly ordained rabbis, not as assistants in
large urban congregations but “in small clusters of congregations that we call
geographic coalitions,” Hart said. The novice rabbis would receive competitive
salaries and reduce their student loans for each year served in a geographic
coalition. Just as important, Hart contends, these rabbis “would touch Jewish
life in a way a third or fourth assistant rabbi in a large congregation
somewhere doesn’t often get the opportunity to do.”

Enlist senior rabbis and large congregations to stop hiring
newly ordained rabbis as assistants. If more kids in outlying areas are exposed
to rabbis, Hart contends, all Jews will benefit. “Invariably some kid is going
to grow up and be a rabbi because he was exposed to one of these rabbis,” he
said. And when the rabbis do go to work at big-city congregations, they will
come with experience, Hart adds.

Develop partnerships between large urban congregations and
smaller congregations in outlying areas, akin to the linkages between Diaspora
and Israeli communities. “How hard would it be twice a year for a rabbi from a
large congregation to go to two or three communities and be a Jewish presence?”
Hart asked.

Hart just might get a sympathetic ear for his partnership
proposal. Rabbi Jerome Epstein, executive vice president of the United
Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, calls such linkages “a great idea.

“Those kinds of things can be helpful. There have been in
our movement a number of congregations that have been helpful in that way and
have said, ‘We’ll provide a rabbi to go visit some smaller congregations,'”
Epstein said. “Some of them have let their assistant or associate do those
kinds of things.”

As in the Reform movement, the Conservative seminaries “send
rabbinic students in their last few years to visit some of these smaller
congregations and provide help on a weekend basis — not only to lead services,
but to work with religious schools on Sunday morning, to provide adult
education on Saturday night,” Epstein said.

But Epstein is less receptive to Hart’s other proposals.

“I’m not certain that I would argue that the small
congregation is better training,” he said. “If the mentor is right, it may be
helpful for many rabbis to learn from someone who is a good mentor in a large
congregation.”

Large congregations need two full-time rabbis, he adds.
Epstein’s solution, then, is “to produce more rabbis.”

Epstein’s counterpart at the Reform movement’s Union of
American Hebrew Congregations, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, was not available for
comment.

Though Jews in the South, and in small communities
throughout North America, comprise less than one-sixth of the Jewish
population, they deserve an infusion of communal resources, Hart said.

“We say every Jewish life counts. We say, ‘Klal Yisrael,'”
or all Jews are a people, Hart said. “We’re trying to save people in Europe,
Argentina, elsewhere in the world. Why wouldn’t we want to save Jews here?”

Hart’s idea of Jewish outreach is to “put some dollars back
in the small communities,” where many urban Jews were born and raised, attended
religious school and began their Jewish lives.

“For us simple country folk,” he said, “it’s just common
sense.” Â