A key focus of these grants will be on programs that can be replicated.  WRJ rolled out the program to sisterhoods in April 2017.  WRJ created a dedicated Outreach page featuring their grant program partnership with NCEJ and publicized the program through various marketing techniques in order to encourage applications from affiliates.  As a result of these efforts, thousands of people were reached through WRJ’s weekly newsletter and their social media sites. This publicity has developed significant interest in the Outreach grants from WRJ sisterhoods all over the U.S.

For more information on this program, contact WRJ Program & Communications Associate Micaela Sheinhait at msheinhait@wrj.org or 212-650-4060.

Awarded Affiliate Program Highlights

WRJ Sisterhood: Temple Emanu-El Sisterhood, Dallas, TX
Program: “Navigating the Religion Decision: A Workshop for Interfaith Couples”

Navigating the Religion Decision is a 6-session workshop to help interfaith couples have healthy discussions about faith. The course will help guide couples struggling with the religious identity of their future home towards a win-win decision where each other’s religious needs are met. The goal for the couples that choose a Jewish path is for them to go on to the congregation’s other programs for engaged and recently married couples making a Jewish home.  This provides the opportunity to connect with other newly engaged/married couples, and allow them to build a relationship with a rabbi.

The 6-session workshop, facilitated by a professional couples’ counselor, will focus on shaping a healthy religious identity in an interfaith home. It will help participants understand the complexity of religious backgrounds, articulate what their religion means to them and what their religious needs are, how to relate to parents and extended family, transmitting a religious identity to children, and get to a solution or commitment for their children’s religious upbringing.

WRJ Sisterhood: Sisterhood of Temple Shalom, Newton, MA
Program: “Becoming Miriam”

Becoming Miriam is a program series to drive greater personal and community engagement with Jewish life, building upon the themes of Pesach and the Seder. This program is designed as a series of education and engagement events with the following goals:

• Appeal to those who are “New to Jewish” or feel on the fringes of Jewish life
• Reduce barriers to entry, and use various approaches to appeal to different types of people
• Build familiarity and comfort with the traditions of the Seder
• Increase knowledge about ways to make the Seder rich and lively for families of all kinds
• Articulate and affirm the ways that extended families and community members, whether or not they are Jewish, can be made welcome and included
• Help women articulate and select those traditions that they want to foster in their own homes, increasing a sense of personal ownership of Jewish life
• Build interpersonal relationships among women of various generations and synagogue cohorts (e.g. mature women and those with young children) to increase engagement within the synagogue

The post NCEJ Funds Women of Reform Judaism (WRJ) Outreach Grants appeared first on National Center to Encourage Judaism.

Five congregations will be/are offering the course for the first time.  Of the seven synagogues/clusters of congregations that had offered “Intro” in the past, some had not offered the course in many years or their courses were significantly briefer than 18 weeks.  The NCEJ-URJ marketing grants will further enable these synagogues to publicize their “Intro” classes and provide a deeper experience for participants.

The communities that received these marketing grant are diverse. One congregation has a large membership, a few are medium-sized, and many are small.  In fact, at least two congregations have fewer than 100 members each. The classes are being/will be held throughout the United States and one in Berlin, Germany. In two communities, coalitions of congregations have been forged to offer a collaborative consortium class.

“With deep gratitude to the National Center to Encourage Judaism, the URJ will be able to market “Introduction to Judaism” to a broader population. Through your partnership with us, this transformational program can impact even more people.  We thank the NCEJ for your part in this endeavor, as do the synagogues and consortia of congregations.”

Recent Feedback from Participants

Two couples who recently finished taking an Introduction to Judaism class, and whose partner from another faith tradition decided to convert, illustrate the impact of “Introduction to Judaism” classes, below:

“I cannot even begin to explain what an AMAZING experience this was for me and my fiancé. We loved this class so much and looked forward to Wednesday nights every week. From Day #1 the teachers were so nice, so welcoming, so down-to-earth cool, so knowledgeable, that we felt a strong connection to everyone. We are going to really miss this class but look forward to keeping in touch with everyone.”

“Wish we could keep meeting each week. Love these classes!“

The course also profoundly impacts Jewish partners in interfaith relationships:

“The main reason I took the class was because my fiancé is converting. However, I am now soooo excited to be even ‘more Jewish’ and celebrate all the holidays, Shabbat, services, etc. I even told my brothers and family that they should take a class like this in the cities where they live. I did not expect to love this class the way I did, and I am very eager and excited to keep up even more the Jewish practice in our household (we’ve already started to!).”

After taking “Intro”, parents raising Jewish children decide to convert:

“I thought the class was perfect.  Very well done… I took the class to help raise my children. Now I want to live as a Jew.”

Communities:

• Springhill Avenue Temple — Mobile, Alabama
• Temple Beth Israel — Pomona, California
• Temple Beth El Riverside — Riverside, California
• Congregation Beth Israel — West Hartford, Connecticut  (in collaboration with Farmington Valley Jewish Congregation, Temple Sinai — Newington, Connecticut, and Temple Beth Hillel — South Windsor, Connecticut)
• Temple Shir Shalom — West Bloomfield, Michigan
• Temple of the High Country — Boone, North Carolina
• Temple Sinai — Reno, Nevada
• Temple Beth-El — Providence, Rhode Island  (in collaboration with Temple Sinai — Cranston, Rhode Island, and Temple Habonim — Barrington, Rhode Island)
• Congregation Kol Ami — Flower Mound, Texas
• Adat Chaverim — Plano, Texas
• Brattleboro Area Jewish Community-Congregation Shir HeHarim — Brattleboro, Vermont
• Beit Haskala Berlin — Berlin, Germany

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