Reform Movement Chair Addresses the AGM
Tuesday, 06 July 2010
This article is adapted from the report given by Stephen Moss at the Movement for Reform Judaism AGM held on Sunday 27th June 2010, at the Sternberg Centre.
This time last year when I made my Report to Council on behalf of your Board, we were in the middle of one of the worst recessions this country has seen. I said then that caution was the watchword for 2009 and it did indeed prove to be a challenging year financially and I think you will agree that we did well to achieve the result we have, given the downturn in income that we faced.
Caution is also the key watchword for 2010 since the economic situation, whilst no longer dire, is still very difficult and the recent budget only served to highlight the fact that, if the country is pulling back on expenditure and raising taxes, then consumers will also be pulling back on expenditure and one consequence of that is that charities will no doubt continue to find it a very tough environment. Despite the genuine warmth of support for what we have achieved and plan to achieve at the Movement, we must therefore take a cautious view of the likely outturn for 2010 in relation to all sources of our income and so, once again, we are having to examine what economies can be made without damaging our core activities and programmes. We will approach the exercise with the care and diligence that you would expect.
All this is a real shame because it comes at a time when the Movement is making great progress in its strategy of renewing Judaism; revitalising Judaism; rethinking Judaism; and representing Judaism. That is why we felt it so important to publish and distribute our Annual Review and not just the Report and Accounts. There is a lot of good news to shout about.
On Renewing Judaism, we continue to work closely with our 42 synagogues providing them with support and advice on practical matters like HR and the raft of relevant regulation, finances and fundraising, IT and web development, constitutional reform, rabbinic appointments and community development plans.
Some of our shuls have gone through difficult patches in terms of communal leadership or community cohesion and we have gone out of our way to try and help them through those periods. When financial times are tough it does tend to bring problems to the surface and so Mike Frankl, David Jacobs and some of our board members have been particularly busy visiting and talking to lay and professional leaders and I know that effort has been greatly appreciated.
Shoshana Boyd Gelfand, myself and our board members have made a number of presentations to council meetings or AGMs, as well as attending our Northern Network and Southern Chairs meetings. We have further improved the quality and scale of our communication with the membership and over 8,500 people now receive our regular e-newsletters. We have also made a determined effort, under Jenny Pizer’s leadership, to step up our input from the centre on matters relating to Israel.
Shoshana Boyd Gelfand and I have played a very active role as governors of the Leo Baeck College and, with our Liberal Judaism opposite numbers, are helping them with what has been something of a major review of several areas of their organisation, as your chairs have been keen that we ensure the movements are getting good value for money for the significant financial support that we provide. This is going well and we should be able to tell you more about the outcomes of that in due course.
In the meantime, I am pleased to report that 8 new rabbis were ordained and 3 found positions in Reform communities; Reform leaders from 11 of our communities attended the Leo Baeck College Summer Institute; and we also saw Zöe Jacobs appointed as the first full time Reform Cantor.
Following on from the successful distribution of 14,000 new Siddurim in 2008, last year saw 5,000 Shiva Books and 2,000 Funeral Books produced and delivered as well as over 750 copies of the Assembly’s splendid publication of 'Really Useful Prayers'. We also had over 100 conversions conducted by our Beit Din.
On Revitalising Judaism, our long term future depends on whether we can keep the flame of Judaism burning bright for our young people. That starts with investing in our youngsters through RSY-Netzer, by providing fun and enriching Jewish educational opportunities in the social setting of our camps and tours. RSY-Netzer had another great year, attracting over 800 10-18 year olds to participate in our summer camps, winter camps, leadership training, Israel tours and gap year programmes, Netzer Venture Days, Purim Spiel-Offs and Jack Petchey Youth Awards.
We never want to turn anyone away from enjoying and benefiting from these experiences, so last year we managed to raise enough money to provide £64,000 of bursaries. This year will present us with a similar challenge and, given the worsening environment for charitable donations, we may run into difficulties meeting bursary demand. If anyone wants to make a donation or knows someone who may be able to help, then do let us know as soon as possible.
One other very positive development in the youth area is our partnering scheme with synagogues to share the time and cost of having additional RSY-Netzer graduates working in the community. This new idea has really gone down well and this year we will have no less than five movement workers sharing their time between the Movement and four of our communities.
On Rethinking Judaism, we continue to create exciting and innovative ways of reaching out to university students and young adults, connecting them and enriching the Jewishness in their lives. The Jeneration website goes from strength to strength as the place for inclusively minded young Jews to find out what’s going on and to use the site as a portal to Jewish life. In the two years since launch we have had over 40,000 unique individual visitors.
On university campuses, our two full time student workers have recruited nine Jeneration student reps across the country and I am delighted to report that Liberal Judaism have decided recently to recruit a student worker to join the Jeneration team rather than run the risk of duplicating and overlapping our joint efforts on campuses. This is a very positive development and will enable us to bring more student reps on board and to increase the opportunities for university coverage.
Our Jeneration fieldworkers joined Shoshana Boyd Gelfand on a trip to New York to see at first hand what ideas were working for young adults in the States and we hope to repeat that successful trip again this year. I would add that part of our quest through Jeneration is to increase the opportunities to identify future rabbis and lay leaders as there is clear evidence that the combination of RSY-Netzer and engagement at university are amongst the best building blocks for a committed Reform Jew.
On Representing Judaism, I want to pay tribute to the work that Tony Bayfield has done to help get us to the point where Reform Judaism, after a mere 170 years in this country, is at last truly recognised as being at the heart of the British Jewish community and, whilst some would still not accept that we will be the mainstream movement, few would dispute the fact that we have shown ourselves to be utterly committed to playing our full part in leadership by consensus and collaboration in the interests of the Jewish community at large.
As the recent Jewish Policy Research analysis of synagogue membership makes clear, the Jewish community in Britain is a very diverse one in which no single movement can speak for all but, together with the Liberals and Masorti, we now account for over 30% of synagogue memberships. That is why we work hard to collaborate with those two movements with Tony Bayfield, Shoshana Boyd Gelfand, our Chair of the Rabbinic Assembly and I meeting with them at least four times a year and attending each other’s conferences, working together on matters of mutual interest like the Leo Baeck College or the JFS case and seeing whether we can share costs on areas such as student fieldworkers.
This is, however, a real team effort with Tony Bayfield writing and preaching plus leading on relationships with the last government and on interfaith with our President Sir Sigmund Sternberg. Shoshana Boyd Gelfand has been leading on our relationship with the European Region for Progressive Judaism, making a number of trips to Israel and writing, speaking and teaching for us at conferences, Limmud, the Union of Jewish Students and the Jewish Social Action Forum to name but a few of her external communal engagements.
We have other rabbis too like Jonathan Romain with his numerous articles and Laura Janner Klausner on BBC Radio 4’s 'Thought for the Day'. And I have been active on the Community Consultative Committee, where all of the main movements meet, on the Jewish Leadership Council and, this time last week, speaking at the Board of Deputies’ plenary session at the Bevis Marks synagogue. Along with other members of the board, including my Vice Chair, Jenny Pizer, we do our best to be seen at all the key communal events. So we are and will continue to punch above our weight.
So there can be little doubt that your Board and the professional team at the Movement were working flat out on your behalf in a challenging environment last year and I do want to pay tribute to all of them for the sterling work that they have done and will continue to do in the year ahead. And, in terms of the future, this next 12 months again involves a very significant work plan.
Apart from continuing with the wide range of activities and programmes on which I have just reported in relation to last year, it will be a year of transition at the top as Tony Bayfield head towards his new role as President and Shoshana Boyd Gelfand and others gradually take on those responsibilities which Tony will not be continuing in his voluntary capacity after the next AGM.
We will also be starting to think through and consult upon plans for two other areas of the organisation in view of the fact that Mike Frankl intends to retire sometime around the end of next year. Mike has responsibility for both the finance function and for the whole area of synagogue services and support, as well as playing a key role in the development of the Sternberg Centre site with our fellow occupiers. I am pleased to say that, on the finance area, we have identified a suitably qualified lay leader to assist us in looking at the future structure and systems within the finance department. At the same time, on synagogue support, the Assembly of Reform Rabbis UK have set up a working group to input their views on this very important area of our operations and on the scope for the Assembly to play a bigger role in the strategic direction of the Movement and we will, jointly, be having a look at the wonderful resource that is the Reform Beit Din. Shoshana Boyd Gelfand and two of our board members are working with that group to a fairly tight timetable. We will, of course, be consulting with chairs and other lay leaders on the options that evolve.
I would like to thank all of my colleagues – lay and professional - for all they have done in 2009 and thank all of our synagogues for their support and encouragement. It is a privilege to be leading this great organisation at this time of great challenges, great opportunity and great change.
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