as the merger turns (synagogue politicking)

[cellio]

Almost a year ago, we rank-and-file members of my synagogue were surprised by email from our president, announcing an ongoing exploration into what their marketing people are calling "unification" with another Reform congregation. We learned later that they had begun those discussions most of a year before. They promised that nothing was a done deal, that everything would be open, that everyone had a voice, that there would be plenty of opportunities to learn more and explore this idea, and so on. Since then, there's been email every couple months with vague progress reports.

The thing about email blasts like this is that they're one-way communication. We finally got a town hall in September, nine months after that original message, more than a year and a half after they started orchestrating this. I thought this was supposed to be the first of multiple town halls, but so far there's just been the one.

It seems that the people driving this have decided that demographics are forcing all congregations to do something (true) and that obviously we should join forces with the other Reform congregation in the city (false). Maybe we should -- but maybe we should join forces with some other congregation instead, since we have more in common with some of the Conservative congregations than with this particular Reform congregation. Or maybe we should remain independent congregations but share buildings, since both of us are older congregations with building problems (too much, expensive). But people at high levels in synagogue organizations tend to be beholden to the movement and don't think more broadly. (I've had some frank conversations with our rabbi. He seems to think more broadly, but I haven't been able to discern what influence he has. He's only been there about three years.)

This is obviously my own perspective, based on the information I have, because I don't rate being in the room where this stuff is happening and they're not sharing a lot. But the more I see, the more skeptical I grow about both the process and the outcome. I fear that we're being railroaded.

--

They did let people speak and ask questions at the town hall, but there's been no followup. One of the questions I asked was about process: how will the vote be conducted? Under our bylaws a group of people not much larger than the board could ram this through, but they kept saying this needs to be "near-unanimous" or it won't happen. Great, I said! What's "near-unanimous"? Can we talk about quorum and how much of a supermajority will be needed? "To be determined". Since then, crickets, despite me sending followup email. (I also asked questions about other things, including finances.)

One thing they said is that they do not want this "exploration" to drag on for years, because then fatigue sets in. They want to identify deal-breakers by January, vote in the spring, and pull the trigger at the end of June. WTF? So from the town hall, the first chance for congregational input, they thought they'd get to approximate consensus in four months? No way. (And now that we're three months past the town hall, I can confirm: that was definitely unrealistic.) If this is an honest, consensual, open process, then the people who've been working on this for more than a year and a half already are just going to have to suck it up and risk their own fatigue while the rest of us get our first opportunities for input and (dare I hope?) influence.

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They have a steering committee consisting of members of the executive committees of each congregation, and they've also found an advisor with a background in corporate mergers & acquisitions who, since retiring, has done pro-bono consulting for nonprofits. They talked a lot at the town hall about a singular synagogue merger he consulted on -- three years ago. So, not nearly enough time to see long-term effects. He might be great -- but we can't know yet. (I asked; no older examples are available.)

Aside: someone with a background in corporate mergers & acquisitions surely knows the difference between the two, but he has been adamant that we not use the word "merger" because that implies a stronger party and a weaker party. Nope, that's an acquisition! That's where "unification" came from, apparently. Smells like spin to me; "unification" sure sounds like the natural state of the world that people should aspire to, right? "Merger" is neutral; their word is not. This is not an open, unbiased discussion.

The steering committee created half a dozen subcommittees (each of which is looking to have subcommittees...) -- areas like education, finance, ritual, legal (including buildings I think?), and a couple others. (Before you ask: they implied pretty strongly that for the legal committee they're looking for professional background.) They asked for volunteers, got about a hundred people across both congregations, and were supposed to kick those off shortly after the town hall. The town hall was two weeks before Rosh Hashana, so you can guess how that went.

--

I signed up for the ritual committee, which met for the first time at the very end of October. It met a second time last week. The chair does not want to talk about deal-breakers because that sounds negative, and instead wants to talk about values and aspirations and brand new possibilities. I asked for clarification: has our charter changed, or are we still trying to identify things that could be blockers before January? Grudging agreement, but that doesn't influence how meeting time is spent.

The chair makes nicey-nice noises in meetings but does not facilitate work outside of them. I asked about collaboration tools, like a Google Doc where we could record issues to discuss and maybe a Slack server so we could work together asynchronously. Let us say that the chair is not exactly one of my fans. I am on the verge of quitting.

I joined the ritual committee for one specific reason: to protect our Shabbat morning minyan. If they screw up the minyan, nothing else they do matters -- I (and I believe other core members) will be out of there. Now the bean-counters are probably saying "yeah, that's a few dozen people, who cares?", but it's the heart of our Shabbat community. Unlike many Reform congregations, we have a Shabbat community. Our services have ritual integrity and are highly participatory, and our community strikes that magic balance where we give newcomers a helping hand and support them as they become more fluent, instead of "simplifying" the service so that people don't have to learn scary Hebrew stuff. We do not do lowest-common-denominator Judaism; we do teach and guide, and go sit next to people we don't recognize and help them feel welcome. It is a great community and it is a learning, growing, caring community. Just a couple weeks ago our newest member, with little Jewish background, was praising us for this.

The other congregation's Shabbat morning service is, uh, not like this. At all. Ritually speaking, Reform Judaism is Judaism Lite -- and they are Reform Lite. Any concession we make to them to "meet in the middle" will do substantial damage to our minyan. Maybe they can dupe some other people into trying, but this is why I have been visiting another congregation some weeks: to scope out a Plan B. I will be very sad to lose this minyan and I hope it doesn't happen, but I don't trust the people leading this to not harm us. Our rabbi says he's been clear that this won't happen; I wish I could believe he will have that authority when all is said and done.

--

I was being fairly circumspect about all this, having occasional quiet conversations with other minyan members and, of course, asking questions at that town hall. I wasn't going to write publicly about it. But at Kol Nidrei the steering committee crossed a line, and everything that's happened since then has made it worse, and we little people need to be willing to speak up.

At Kol Nidrei, the evening of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year and the best-attended service of the year, they presented as fact the steering committee's reasons for "why this must happen". It was one-sided, hyperbolic in places, and thoroughly inappropriate. They compared declining affiliation (the demographic issue I mentioned earlier) to the destruction of the Temple (!), and also to the exodus from Egypt, where change was forced on people. They all but compared the leaders of the steering committee to Yochanan ben Zakkai and Moshe. It was disgusting.

Since then, it has become abundantly clear that joint activities between the two congregations will not be done in a fair way. Three times in three months they've cancelled our Shabbat morning service so that we could go to the other one instead. How many times has the reverse happened? There was one in July. Under pressure, they're coming to us at the end of December, generally a time of lower attendance so not exactly a loss for them. This sort of imbalance has happened with other services too.

The other congregation is older (and reportedly in worse financial shape), and it sure feels like somebody is pushing for an acquisition, not a merger. The steering committee would like people to vote yes and trust that it will all work out; I am urging people to vote no until we have reason to believe that is the case. It's ok if that takes time. It's ok if it never happens. And it's ok if it does happen, responsibly. This...is not that, so far.

Comments

[loosecanon]

As with any org, the leadership is supposed to reflect the needs and expectations of the population they represent.

I am sorry yours have lost track of that.

[julian]

Ooof. Yes, that's both complex and not reasonably responsible. Grmp.

[goljerp]

Ugh, this is tough.

Has anyone spoken about what would happen with the clergy? Presumably they wouldn't need all the clergy to continue if this merger happened. I bet they haven't been playing up this part of the merger (unless some of the clergy is unpopular).

I know it can be strange to think about, but I know several examples of different shuls meeting in the same building, and I think it can work. Actually, wait, wasn't the Tree of Life bulding an example of this?

[cellio]

Yes, Tree of Life shared its building with two other congregations, and currently Tree of Life meets at Rodef Shalom. This model is not invisible!

I meant to talk about clergy, but this was getting long and I forgot to go down that path. Yes, it's messy, and I think there is an undeclared pressure on the timing because of it:

We have a rabbi and a cantor, both of whom started in the last few years. (The rabbi who served for more than 30 years is now emeritus.) They also have a rabbi and a cantor. Their cantor has been there for a few years; their rabbi is retiring in June. The three who are staying are popular within their own congregations. (This isn't meant as a negative comment about the fourth: I don't know, but also, it doesn't matter.)

Prudence would dictate that they be conducting a search for an interim rabbi (standard practice when a long-serving rabbi retires, rather than jumping straight to the next long-term contract). I am not privy to whether they actually are conducting that search. I think there is a sentiment in the steering committee that we can "take care of" their problem by the time their rabbi retires. I don't think that should be our problem or a reason to rush. They could get an interim and continue the discussions. That would be the responsible thing to do.

Some people have openly asked "so, one rabbi but two cantors -- how's that work?" and we've been assured that "it will work out". The claim is that Reform ordained cantors are fully qualified as clergy and can do the things that rabbis usually do. I believe their cantor is "younger" professionally and I know that for some things in the Reform movement seniority matters, but I have no idea if this is one of them. The steering committee seems to be saying that the combined congregation could afford three clergy members and these three would be fine; I think some congregants are skeptical on both counts, and I assume that both cantors are looking at other options in case they get squeezed out. Unless they have amazing severance clauses in their contracts, they do not want to get to April or May and find themselves without jobs, too late for the coming year's placement rounds.

I do not believe that their cantor meshes well with our congregation. He's a good singer and a poor fit, if that makes sense. (On one foot: performer, not leader.) If the steering committee decides that we can really only afford two clergy, and they decide to be "fair" by taking one from each, that would be a pretty big blow to us. Meanwhile, they'll have lost nothing, since their rabbi was leaving anyway. Messy!

[goljerp]

Oy. I totally understand the cantor one-foot. It can be really hard to balance "singing with" with "singing to"; if someone trained as an opera singer and then decided they really wanted to be a cantor, they might not be that great at the leading singing part, even if they were great to listen to. I think I'm lucky in that the cantor (sorry, musical director[1]) at my shul is very talented and can do both; I think that she hits the right balance about 90% of the time for me (and I recognize that there are people who might want more "singing to" than "singing with" from her, and cantors in general). There was a cantorial intern (a perk of having a shul a mile from a Conservative seminary) who had a really nice voice, but I felt like he was performing more than leading, and would go to another minyan (in my shul) sometimes when I saw he would be leading. I'm also lucky that my shul has several other minyanim, which are lay-led, in the building.

[1] When she was first hired, there was a lot of resistance to hiring a cantor, because we weren't that sort of shul! We were lay-led (mostly)! And she was only part-time! So it was decided her title would be "Musical Director", but of course she is a Cantor, so I think her title was "Cantor H, Musical Director".

[magid]

Oh, wow, that all does seem really messy.

Is there any way that the only part of this to merge could be the building, and everything else stays intact until $some_future_tbd? That would help with the financials without changing much else. Assuming there's space enough for two services some of the time, that is.

(I feel very lucky that my current shul has a lot of davening options, ranging egal to partnership to ortho to Sepharadi, although not with the same frequencey.)

[cellio]

I've pushed for that: share a building but leave the congregations otherwise distinct. The members of the steering committee I've talked with seem uninterested in the idea and I don't know why. They keep saying "but demographics!" and that the building isn't our only problem, but they don't get more specific and they don't seem to understand the value of an incremental approach. I mean, if you've got two congregations sharing a building they're naturally going to do some things together anyway, and maybe over time there'll be more of that and someone will say "hey, should we merge?", but it doesn't have to happen now.

I guess it would mean they'd have to hire a rabbi, but shrug -- they were going to have to do that anyway when their current one told them, a year ago, about planning to retire next year.

I don't think either building can house all of us, either as separate entities or merged, and there's a strong psychological element if one congregation "wins" by keeping its space and the other has to move. I think they need to look for a third place.

[magid]

That sounds even more frustrating than before, to have specific suggestions that have merit and have them brushed away with vague responses that don't actually give real reasons.

I'm surprised that neither building could work (outside the 'winning' aspect); how difficult would it be to find a third place, especially on the timeline they seem to be forcing?

(And the issues around preferred davening choices is *huge*; I'd so be worried about that. If there are two services, and people decide to float/explore, rather than "this week we are visiting $other_place, that can work. But forcing it will never be the correct choice.)

[cellio]

Either building could work with substantial renovations, but neither works "out of the box", quite aside from the "winning" aspect. There are possible "third places", I believe -- not in that timeframe for sure, but the deadline seems to be quite artificial. A member of the steering committee told me something to the effect of "so maybe we squeeze in there for the time being, while we work on a third place" -- which, even if that were promised and even if I trusted that promise, their current location is a deal-killer for me. It's not in Squirrel Hill and I'm not walking 2+ miles each way every week for Shabbat. So if they do that I'll leave, and if they do actually get a new place (in the neighborhood) then I'll decide whether to stick with my new home or go back, and I have a feeling I know how that would end.

But forcing it will never be the correct choice.

Agreed! I don't know why this is even a question, yet here we are -- with one of them, not one of us, leading that ritual committee, and pushing for "exploration" and "experimentation" and talking as if our existing minyan is stagnant. No, our minyan evolves too, thoughtfully, over time, and with much discussion. Consensual, not imposed. The committee chair -- and, I suspect, steering committee -- does not understand this.

[chaos_wrangler]

Ouch. I hope that this works out well for you, and I can understand why you're not trusting the process as you've seen it so far.

Btw, thank you for describing everything synagogue-related so clearly, whether it's politics or siddurim or different styles of minyanim. Most of my first-hand synagogue experience is Orthodox with a little with Conservative (worked at one for a couple years, occasionally attended another with family), and it's always interesting to me how various synagogues are the same or different.

[cellio]

Thanks. I try to write in a way that's accessible to all of my readers (who are likely to care about a topic to begin with), and that ranges from very knowledgeable Jews across the spectrum to curious non-Jews. I'm interested in learning how others do things too, and I learn a lot from my Orthodox friends (particularly about service structure and content).

Speaking of... in your experience, how does erev Shabbat usually work? When is the service with respect to sundown? Do women and kids tend to go? How does all that interact with dinner and with lighting candles at home?

[chaos_wrangler]

Sorry for the delay, this took longer than I expected to write 'cause I expanded a bit from your specific questions.

Mincha is usually scheduled so that maariv can be right afterwards, so people only have to go to synagogue once to have a minyan for both.

Most women go to synagogue only on shabbat morning, or shabbat morning and afternoon, but some will attend at other times, especially if they are saying kaddish. On erev shabbat, women (& single men) light at home and then go to synagogue*. Dinner is after people get home from maariv, usually around an hour after candle lighting.

* lighting early if necessary to get to synagogue for mincha, or lighting at the usual time and then going to synagogue just for maariv.

In the summer months when nightfall is late, some synagogues keep the same schedule as the rest of the year and some start shabbat early. If the synagogue starts shabbat early then everyone who goes there also lights early. This isn't my minhag, so I'm less familiar with it. I think most keep candle lighting around 6:00 or 6:30 so that e.g. bedtime isn't too late.

Not quite what you asked, but related... A lot more people (men, women, & kids) go to shacharit/mussaf on shabbat than maariv or mincha (or any time during the week), and there often is a separate program for kids during part of shabbat shacharit and/or mussaf**, but there usually isn't anything specifically for kids on erev shabbat. So any kids in synagogue on erev shabbat have to be (a) mature enough to sit with the grownups, (b) trusted unsupervised in the building on their own, or (c) young enough that they can be held or kept in a baby seat/stroller/etc during services without disturbing everyone else.

** Depending on the synagogue/demographics, this can range from a separate room for infants (so they can make noise, be fed, etc), to toys in a playroom with a babysitter hired by the synagogue, to more structured activities up to something similar to the adult service for kids who are almost bar/bat mitzvah. Some also have a kids' program on shabbat afternoon, although that's less likely to include anything for younger children. The kids' program on shabbat morning may be timed so that the kids are with the grownups for torah reading, and it usually ends so that the kids are with the grownups to lead the singing at the end of mussaf.

Another factor is whether there is an eruv. I grew up in an area without an eruv, so my mom didn't go to synagogue even on shabbat morning unless all then-kids were consistently able to walk both ways. I live within an eruv now, and while for most families it's mom who takes the kid(s) to synagogue on shabbat morning, there are some families where dad takes the kids to synagogue (often for special dad/child time if mom does most of the childcare during the week, and/or to give mom a break/ability to set up dinner without them). Other common patterns are the older kids go with dad earlier on shabbat morning and then mom takes the younger ones later in the morning (often arriving just in time for the kids' program), or younger kids get taken by an older sibling instead of a parent.

[shewhomust]

Oh, dear. I am so sorry to hear this.