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it's all in how you say it
A fellow congregant called and asked me to be on the steering committee (read: board) of the sisterhood.
What I thought: Having a sisterhood (and brotherhood) is anathema to an egalitarian congregation. If we say that men and women don't have assigned roles, why on earth would I want to help perpetrate an organization that tries to go backwards by (re-)assigning those roles? It's not like our sisterhood and brotherhood are trying to move past conventional gender roles -- the women handle babysitting during services and serve cookies and coffee afterwards, and the men hold barbeques and talks by investment bankers. Feh! I want none of it! And not just because babysitting and serving coffee aren't my thing! There's a higher principle here. How can I help you see this?
What I said: I'm flattered, but no.
What I thought: Having a sisterhood (and brotherhood) is anathema to an egalitarian congregation. If we say that men and women don't have assigned roles, why on earth would I want to help perpetrate an organization that tries to go backwards by (re-)assigning those roles? It's not like our sisterhood and brotherhood are trying to move past conventional gender roles -- the women handle babysitting during services and serve cookies and coffee afterwards, and the men hold barbeques and talks by investment bankers. Feh! I want none of it! And not just because babysitting and serving coffee aren't my thing! There's a higher principle here. How can I help you see this?
What I said: I'm flattered, but no.
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Eventually, after the passing of the older folks who came from generations when the term "women's work" was meaningful, maybe the whole institution will sort of collapse in on itself. I can hope, anyway. On the other hand, there seem to be a lot of middle-aged folks involved in both sisterhood and brotherhood, so maybe not. Some of those are undoubtedly just looking for a social group, and are missing the other social groups available both within and outside of the congregation, but inertia might be too powerful here. Dunno.
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Neat! That's nice to hear. I wish there were more like yours. :-)
What strikes me as odd, now that you bring it up, is that at least in my congregation, most of the stuff done by the sisterhood and brotherhood would easily migrate elsewhere if those organizations didn't exist. We have adult ed, we have custodial staff who clean up after the oneg/kiddush and who could easily also put the cookies out in the first place, congregants are perfectly capable of operating the coffee pot themselves... I guess the babysitting would be temporarily stranded, but I expect that either it would become an added staff responsibility or a coalition of parents and interested others would pull together and make it happen. (I bet there would also be an effort to draft the youth group, but I expect that would fail.)
In our congregation the sisterhood also manages the gift shop. But, again, it would be perfectly reasonable for that to spin off elsewhere; who says men don't want to be involved in that anyway? In a sisterhood-less world the gift shop would ultimately be accountable to the treasurer, I would imagine, so the treasurer could just appoint someone to run it (like, say, the person who's doing it now) and let that person staff it, which is pretty much how it gets staffed now anyway.
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In my old synagogue, the kitchen in both the old and the new building was on the men's side, so there was an informal all-male "kiddush club" who set got things ready and ferried things out. This included the rabbi, who made a nice cholent. However, the synagogue itself was basically run for years by the "Special Events Committee", which is largely female and headed by the rebbitzen. The board itself is mixed, and is now taking a more active role in things, which is good.
In my current one, there is a board and there is a "Chesed Committee". The board is mixed, with rules about which gender fills what roles (president *must* be male, vice president *must* be female. This, oddly enough, was not a factor in our old, Lubavitcher run shul, where we even asked a woman to be president. Wisely, she declined. Shul president is a hard and thankless job.) Anyway, the board is mixed.
This is unusual where I live in that most synagogues, as near as I can figure, don't *have* boards. They're owned by their rabbis, called by their rabbi's names. ("Where are you daavening tonight?" "I'm daavening by Goldwasser's. You?" "I thought I'd go to Rosenblatt's.") And these rabbis are fairly autocratic.
The chesed (kindness) committee, which notifies members of shivas and births and provides meals and hospital visits, does seem to do the job of the Sisterhood. It is, in fact, largely female - I'm on it, as my husband is on the board - but there are a couple of male members as well.
It does seem odd that an Orthodox synagogue, which is determinedly non-egalitarian in its services, is more so behind the scenes.
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In my shul (well, some wouldn't call it a shul; I go (not enough) to services at the orthodox minyan of the local Hillel) there's a mixed group who organizes kiddush (a self-selecting group), and anyone can be on the chessed committee or on the board of the minyan (depending on which positions are open: we have slots designated for people like the ritual committee chair, the tzedakah committee chair, the gabbaim, and all, but also have undergraduate, graduate, faculty, alum, and community (everyone else) representatives, too.).
(
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I've never been a member of an Orthodox congregation, so my impressions there come from friends and from the dozen or so I've visited. Somehow I had the impression that almost everyone had a sisterhood and a brotherhood, but now I can't support that impression with facts. I have seen a fair bit of gender-differentiation outside of services, but don't know now if those congregations have formal sisterhoods/brotherhoods.
(The kicker, for me, was the gender-segregated kiddush. I wasn't allowed to go into the one room with the only other person I knew there (male), and he wasn't allowed to go into my assigned room. But this wasn't a unique experience; that same shabbat we went to a different shul for mincha and seudah shleishit, and that meal was segregated too. It was a single divided room, though, so I could hear the speaker.)
My congregation has a mixed board and no gender restrictions on officers/committee chairs. Our "caring committee" (like your chessed committee) is mixed, as are all of the other committees (worship, adult ed, school, finance, ...). Near as I can tell, outside of worship the sisterhood and brotherhood are the only gender-influenced activities/positions we have.
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That's more common than you would think. I go to Modern Orthodox synagogues, where those things most emphatically would not fly, but in more right-wing places, separate seating/standing at kiddush is normal. Separate seating at seudat shlishit, too, if women actually attended, which would probably only occur if there were a speaker or some other event.
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This is not very common (in my experience) among Reform, Conservative, or Reconstructionist Shuls. Are these Modern Orthodox places, Chasidic, or other?
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Modern Orthodox synagogues are pretty much organized the way the liberal branches are - a board of trustees and a paid rabbi. And, I suspect the larger "Black hat" synagogues, the ones with very large memberships, are also organized in that way. It's just that there are far more smaller ones, and those tend to be owned by the rabbis themeselves - often the shul is part of their own homes. In other areas of Brooklyn, these shteiblach would be run by Chasidim, but Flatbush is a center of "yeshivishe" types - very Orthodox, with a uniform of black suits and black hats for the men and wigs for the women, but who are not Chasidic, and so that's who own our shuls.
Although, there are also any number of Chasidishe places. My husband takes a weekly class on "milk and meat" at a little Chasidishe shteible less than a block from us, and that's where he goes when he wants to daaven with minyan during the week. Our own shul only has Shabbat and Sunday services.
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This is the kind of issue I think about a lot, being active in the Masons, where gender roles are very strictly enforced. IMO, it's one of several cultural artifacts that are killing the organization, since it looks a tad weird to most younger people. But the idea that different genders are supposed to have different roles is an ancient and pervasive meme, and widespread doubt about it is still very new. So most folks over 50 have it set deep in their bones, and can't really shake it...
(One of the very first decisions I made about my Mysteries project was that it wasn't going to pick up the male-only fraternity thing from Masonry. Which reminds me: I still owe my journal a writeup of that project, to maybe spur further work on it...)
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I can see how changing attitudes toward gender roles could pose a problem for the Masons, yes. I imagine that older women find the idea of Eastern Star pleasant (a place of their own), and that younger folks see it as "separate but equal [sic]". And correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't really have the option to have some activities mixed and some segregated, right? Whereas in an Orthodox congregation, for example, worship services will be segregated and women will not be permitted to participate in certain ways, but everyone can go to the same social afterwards (unless the shul is strange -- see another comment above). There's a lot of neat stuff about the Masons that isn't explicitly about gender, but the gender thing will ultimately be the death knell.
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It's a little more complex than that. Masonic ritual is strictly male-only (and that's enforced through some of the most carefully-written oaths I've ever seen). Eastern Star is actually mixed-gender, although it's focused on the ladies. (I was Patron of our Chapter when
(And a caveat is required: all of this applies only to mainstream Grand Lodge Masonry. There are a number of schismatic organizations, such as Co-Masonry, that don't have the gender hangup. But due to the aforementioned oaths, it's essentially impossible for the mainstream to play with the schisms.)
But overall, I concur that the gender thing is a real problem. (Along with the organization being collectively a little too shy about its ritual, which is IMO the best part of the whole thing, and an excessively rigid formal structure. Hence the Mysteries project -- trying to design an organization with the ritual strengths of Masonry, without the historical baggage...)
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The big problem I see is when you start to associate certain programs or authority with those groups, especially because of the arbitrary distinction (the "sisterhood" always organizes babysitting, the youth fellowship always serves at dinners, the men's group always does the spring repairs, etc.)
In that sense, did you consider taking the position and "highjacking" the group toward more productive goals? You could wind up with a useful group if it got out of its ruts - even something as simple as trading traditional stewardships with the men's group for a month in the interest of building tighter bonds between congregants (which can be a non-threatening way of introducing the otherwise unthinkable :-))
To some extent, if this group is bringing value to its active membership (and you suggest it does), you would need to balance making big waves with a responsibility to the existing constituency (if only in self defense.) But there are good arguments if someone's offering you a leadership position in something you think isn't productive (but isn't going away as part of a larger group that's important to you) to take the opportunity to influence it in what you believe to be a more valid direction.
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Role-swapping is a great idea. I think I will whisper it in the ears of a couple people involved in these groups and see what their reactions are. This time around, at least, I think I'll try to nudge things from the sidelines, not take the board seat. (I'll bet I could get another offer next year if I like.) If nothing else, I need better intelligence about how this organization really operates. I've never even been to a meeting.
But hijacking the group is clever, and I shouldn't rule out that possibility. I've been distracted by the congregation board, where my role seems to be "friendly but persistent PITA who's going to make us at least look at this issue" (iterate over several issues). I think I'll try to gather data and see if I can nudge things from outside, and that will tell me if trying it from the inside in a year would be a better idea.
Thanks!
or... you could work to change it...
(Seth (http://www.livejournal.com/users/sethcohen/) and Karen (http://www.livejournal.com/users/ksnell/) are also members there.)
So... after less than a year of being members I was asked onto at least two board-level committees (that I can remember). Then I was asked to assume the Men's Club role. (I guess I'd made it quite clear that I wasn't just along for the ride at this synagogue. I was going to be active and I was going to make myself known. That must come from my desire to make whatever I invest my time in live up to its potential.) They called the role "President" but I call it "Chairman" for at least two reasons:
1. I wasn't elected, and
2. As an unelected one-man operation, it's more like a committee chair than a President of some organization.
Anyway... I accepted the position because I figured I could do it, but most importantly, I knew that with the reigns in my own hands I could buck trends. I told "the powers that be" that I wasn't going to make the Men's Club another venue for siphoning cash from its members, I wasn't going to force it to work if the demographics didn't warrant it, and I was going to recommend it be shut down and its assets distributed if good programming wasn't enough to keep people (men) interested and involved. And, oh yeah, except for some events that are just more fun or appropriate, socially, to do with guys (like a Steaks, Cigars, and Scotch dinner, and Lady's Night Out In-shul Babysitting) my programming was going to be egalitarian.
They were fine with all of my conditions.
Our synagogue is blessed with tons of programming considering that we're barely more than 500 families. One of the things the Men's Club had become and seemed to still be was a home for orphaned projects. What it seemed the synagogue needed was a Programs Coordinator and not a Men's Club for that. And the situation implied that it might be necessary to hire such a person full time as a synagogue employee to do all that.
What I'm learning from this experience, you may be able to use: that being involved is the only way to change anything and, perhaps more importantly, that even in egalitarian congregations there can be a role for a group that is just for men or just for women. There are differences in the genders and often these groups are the only social outlets for many members of the congregation. In fact, in many congregations, there are people who involve themselves in sisterhood/brotherhood/Men's Club, who otherwise don't get involved in anything else and this is often such persons' identification with the congregation. They don't even come to services except for the High Holidays, and usually only for 3 days of them.
While the demographics of our synagogue doesn't seem to be supporting a Men's Club, I don't begrudge that we have a sisterhood. It might be the only Jewish identification some people have.
Re: or... you could work to change it...
What was the state of the men's club when they asked you to lead it? Did your changes represent nudges in a different direction, wholesale change, invention out of whole cloth (e.g. the group was inactive), or what?
Oh, and I don't have a problem with men-only or women-only gatherings -- it's only when jobs, opportunities, or scut work become exclusively owned by one of those groups that I have a problem. And this problem is in the context of an egalitarian congregation; I would never walk into a non-egal place and try to cross gender lines, for instance.
(By the way, if you need an LJ code, let me know. I've got plenty.)
Re: or... you could work to change it...
Although my changes bucked tradition, they didn't smack up against anything or anyONE that stopped me from implementing them. No charter or by-laws for example that told me what rules I needed to follow.
The only static I'm getting are from people who prefer "phone tree" vs. email for getting information. I told those types that I didn't have the resources to implement a phone tree. This one person replied by saying, "... well then I guess I now know who you want in your group and who you want to leave out." Oh well... I can't net everyone.
But back to the subject at hand. The synagogue had come to expect about $1000 in income from the Men's Club each year. Plus they expected us to buy Bar/Bat Mitzvah gifts. Each year since I've taken over, the office calls to ask me whether we're in a position to buy the gifts. One thing I told the board when I took over (and asked for $500 in a seed grant) was that until we had a steady membership and could be self-sustaining I would not commit to paying for anything that wasn't directly funding Men's Club events. They were OK with that.
In fairness, many of the board members and its leaders are business owners and management types. They know what it's like to run a business. Furthermore, the current and recent Presidents have been in their 40's and 50's and are a bit more "hip" than their 70 and 80 y.o. elders.
There's a national "federation" of Men's Clubs. When i first took over, two of the local muckety-mucks came to talk to me about the advantages of being part of their association. But I wasn't impressed with them. I found too few of their programs to be unique to Men, and I found their "value proposition" to be far too mired in 1950's thinking.
So the bottom line is that I am able to exploit the convergence of several factors in my favor.
My hope is to bring the Men's Club down for a soft landing and pay out our bank account to other programs. One such program is the "Israel Affairs" program which I started with another member last year in the wake of 9-11-01 and the terrorist events in Israel. We dedicated most of 5762's programming to terrorism, hasbara, and related discussion of current events. It was officially part of the Men's Club for the first year and is now on its own.
One thing I'd like to point out before I close is that I don't take well to the "that's the way we've always done it" excuse. Such cop-outs are a rocket sled into the cement wall of failure. If I'm part of any group, they'd better accept that I'm going to stir things up or they'd better not have me on the committee. And for the most part, they already know that about me which is why they asked me to be there anyway.
Thanks for the LJ code offer. I'm not yet into Blogging and if I were, I'm not sure I'd use LJ to do it. I'd probably make it part of my professional self than my personal self. You're generous to offer, and hope I can take you up on it should I change my mind.
Re: or... you could work to change it...
What's with that, anyway? We have the same sort of situation -- the brotherhood and sisterhood make annual contributions to the synagogue, and hold fund-raising activities throughout the year to support that. But we're all the same congregants! So the synagogue asks me for money, and the sisterhood asks me for money, and the endowment campaign asks me for money, and various other special interests ask me for money, all of which ends up in the synagogue coffers. Are there really people who give more money if it's carved up that way? I don't; I decide how much the synagogue is getting this year, and I usually just pay it directly, and I don't do the secondary fund drives. And I don't see myself as shirking some sort of obligation to the sisterhood; it's that I already gave at the office, so to speak.
(I guess I'm not the only one who thinks like this, because last year we kicked off an endowment campaign and this year the number of "above and beyond" dues contributions went down. What surprises me is that this surprised some other board members.)
Fundraising models are one of the hardest things for me to understand about synagogue life...