 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
8
Union for Progressive Judaism Meeting, 7 May, Melbourne
On 7 May I attended a Union for Progressive Judaism (UPJ) meeting in Melbourne. This was my
first national meeting since taking over the presidency.
The morning session started with a congregation presidents’ meeting. A combined presidents'
executive meeting followed. The afternoon was spent in a marketing workshop. Some of the
points discussed in the morning session are:
Demographics
Congregation membership is aging, as is the total Jewish population.
There are a large number of unaffiliated Jews.
Most future emigrates will be from Asia, so there will not be many Jews among them.
Further, of those Jews who do emigrate to Australia most are likely to go to Melbourne
and Sydney and not regional Australia.
There is a need to ensure we are and remain relevant to members.
There is an issue of how to relate and make ourselves relevant to unaffiliated Jews.
Rabbinical
Many congregations cannot afford rabbis.
There are limited numbers of rabbis.
The issues facing congregations that do employ rabbis is very different to those that
cannot.
Small congregations need support from UPJ - visiting rabbis and support materials.
The UPJ has allocated rabbis to assist congregations without rabbis.
The UPJ has considered employing it own rabbi to assist congregations that do not
have rabbis, but the problem is funding.
Leadership
Aging.
Succession problems.
Financial
Money seems to be a problem for many congregations
Other
The UPJ has developed a number of documents to assist congregations, such as a
summary of procedures for those seeking conversion to Judaism.
The UPJ’s key theme/’core issue’ this year is “Who are we and what do we stand for”.
The issues facing the larger and smaller congregations are often very different.
Daniel Albert
 |