Summaries+of+2008-09+LHIP+grants


 * Beit Daniel,** the Centre for Progressive Judaism (Reform, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, IS), stands on three pillars: education, prayer and social justice. As a congregation we aim to be a model of a community based on equality and pluralism. The //New// //Heights// project will work to strengthen Jewish learning and living of Beit Daniel's preschool network families through holidays and Shabbat celebrations. Families will have the opportunity to take a moment out of time to enjoy engaging experiences that also challenge parents and children to carve out what is Jewish to them in their daily life, while providing parents with accessible tools to continue the experience and the reflective exploration at home within the family framework. The project recognizes the importance of working in parallel with three main target audiences: (a) staff, preschool teachers and educators, (b) preschool families, (c) overall congregation. // New Heights // will reinforce Beit Daniel's preschool community, where at its core is the pulsating Jewish experience.

As Beth El's //BaDerech// initiative moves into its third year, we will continue to work toward our goal of all congregants exploring their Jewish journeys and striving to live the words of the //v'ahavta/// וְאָהַבְתָּ (בְּשִׁבְתְּךָ בְּבֵיתֶךָ וּבְלֶכְתְּךָ בַדֶּרֶךְ ) - to fully live and express a Jewish life while sitting at home and walking on the way - by creating seamless connections between expressions of Judaism in personal homes and Beth El, our communal home. On a programmatic level, our efforts to work toward this goal will focus on programs with Preschool families, Shabbat family programming, havurot, support for interfaith families, and sharing stories through one-on-one community organizing techniques. We also advance the work of //BaDerech// on a systemic level through communicating our vision to the entire congregation, breaking down organizational silos, and strengthening partnerships between and among professional and lay leaders at Beth El. **Beth Jacob**, Columbus OH (Orthodox) Congregation Beth Jacob will launch the LaDor VaDor Intergenerational Programming Initiative, designed to pair younger congregational families with senior citizens in the Columbus, OH community to foster friendships and relationships. The families will celebrate monthly Shabbat Onegs. Each Oneg will include a meal in addition to time for sharing stories, singing z’mirot, having text study and providing the opportunity to interact in a joyous environment. Ongoing programming throughout the year is also planned as well as weekly visits from our Pre-schoolers to the local Jewish nursing home and senior center. These monthly programs will help to create the extended family that so many people no longer have.
 * Beth El of the Sudbury River Valley,** Sudbury, MA (Reform, 340 household units)

“Shabbat Shalem” (A Complete Shabbat) Shabbat Shalem focuses on redefining CBI’s approach to educational programming and seeks to enhance communal engagement on Shabbat within the CBI community. It incorporates the events that the Adult Education Committee, Youth Education Committee, Ritual Committee, Social Action Committee, the Gan Shalom pre-school, Board, and Rabbi, have planned and organizes them around a central annual theme (such as prayer, Shabbat, Tikkun Olam). Shabbat Shalem is celebrated eight times per year. This innovative approach will include family services, learner’s services, communal text studies (led by members), scholars-in-residence, children’s musical //havdalahs//, //melaveh malkahs//, and community-wide Shabbat lunches and dinners. During its first full year, the community will focus specifically on reorienting board and committees around the Shabbat Shalem vision, developing curriculum for pre-school families, promoting a culture of sustainable learning among synagogue members.
 * Beth Israel,** Berkeley, CA (Modern Orthodox, 180 household units)

**Herzl-Ner Tamid,** Mercer Island, WA (Conservative, 830 household units) The B'Yachad program is changing not only the structure of the Frankel Religious School program but is also having an impact on Herzl-Ner Tamid Conservative Congregation at large. In our pilot year, many families with children in grades 3-5 chose an alternative model that included family attendance at Shabbat programs and parent learning sessions together with a dynamic individualized classroom experience for students. As a result, families reported feeling closer to each other and to the synagogue, and reported high levels of satisfaction with all aspects of the learning experience. In the coming year, our goal is to extend this model throughout the school, creating learning opportunities for parents with children in grades K-2 and 6-8, offering meaningful interactive Shabbat and holiday experiences for families with children of all ages, and encouraging B'Yachad parents to become future leaders of the congregation.

IKAR will build upon its already successful Shabbat morning family education program, Limudim, during which children and adults engage in both family-based and grade-based learning and //davening//. IKAR plans to improve the current program by continuing to explore creative and effective means to teach the community about Torah, //tefillah//, Hebrew and more while experiencing Shabbat together. To that end, IKAR plans to develop personalized family education plans, create a Shabbat morning CD, create more at-home learning resources, promote inter-generational //parshah// discussions during the community lunch and to invest in teacher training to effectuate these changes. IKAR also plans to create a more substantive and engaging programming for “premudim” aged children (2 ½ - 5 years) and to diversify the adult-focused activities in an effort to reach IKAR’s broad population.
 * IKAR, Los Angeles CA** (Independent, 350 household units)

**Kehillat YOZMA ,** Modi'in, IS (Progressive/Reform, 240 household units) // Kehillat // YOZMA will continue and expand its systemic outreach to those families who initially come to YOZMA for the educational opportunities offered by the fledgling elementary school. This approach is based upon using the school as a means of drawing the parents and children into the greater YOZMA community and synagogue life, exposing them to the beauty of Shabbat and holiday celebrations, integrating the children in YOZMA's youth group TELEM, and involving parents and children in YOZMA's rich social action activities. By building a program of special events throughout the school year specifically targeting the school family population, YOZMA seeks to increase school families' and intergenerational participation in the weekly YOZMA Shabbat services, in YOZMA's adult //Beit Midrash// and in the celebration of lifecycle events (baby naming ceremony, bat/bar mitzvah etc) in the YOZMA synagogue community.

 **Temple Beth El of South Orange County**, Aliso Viejo, CA (Reform, 658 household units) ** : "Bayit to Bayit” ** Participating families in this alternative track to religious school will be grouped in havurot of six to eight families, engaging in at least one Shabbat and one holiday celebration each month, in addition to two Sunday learning programs. The programming will involve joint and parallel learning for adults and children. The at-home component includes weekly online learning. Each havurah will create its own social action project and function as a tzedakah collective.


 * Temple Beth Shalom,** Long Beach, CA (Conservative, 175 household units) The Shabbat Hospitality Initiative (SHI) aims to invigorate the Shabbat experience at Temple Beth Shalom and in our wider community. Beth Shalom aims to create a new model for inspiring a Sabbath community in synagogues by giving equal weight to home and communal celebrations of Shabbat. The centerpiece of the initiative is an innovative emphasis on the celebration of Shabbat in the home and the practice of hospitality at the Sabbath table called Shalom Aleichem Shabbat. On the First Friday night of the month, the congregation, led by our Rabbi, Dov Gartenberg, will recruit congregants to host a Shabbat meal with guests at their homes in place of the customary emphasis on attending the congregational worship service. To support host households, the congregation will send out Shabbat Table Animators, professional and lay Jewish educators who will provide personalized Shabbat at home experiences for congregants and their guests. Temple Beth Shalom is committed to bringing Shabbat home by making these unique Shabbat House Calls. A second, complimentary effort of the Shabbat Hospitality Initiative is the introduction by the Beth Shalom Religious School of a monthly Shabbat Afternoon Kallah, called Shavua Tov. These Shabbat afternoon gatherings provide opportunities for parents, children, and congregants to study, sing, feast, and celebrate Jewish culture and community culminating in Havdalah.

**Temple Beth Sholom, Roslyn Heights, NY** (Conservative, 875 household units) The //Morei Derech Beth Sholom// Project will engage families in our synagogue community who are looking for greater Jewish involvement by pairing them with //Morei Derech,// guides or "Jewish Life Coaches" who will help these families make the connection between the synagoge and their homes as well as help them navigate their Jewish journeys. In Year One of the project, we will identify and train the //Morei Derech.// The training curriculum will have four components: Shabbat, Holidays, "The Mitzvah Initative" and Coaching Methodologies. Simultaneous to the training of the //Morei Derech// we are also going to engage our synagogue leadership in a parallel learning track. They will learn to see their roles as **Jewish** leaders and in a sense become the "Ultimate //Morei Derech"// of Temple Beth Sholom. The year will culminate in a Shabbaton in May with guest scholar, Dr. Ron Wolfson, who will speak not only to the entire synagogue, but will work privately with the //Morei Derech// and the synagogue leaders.

Shabbat B’yachad is an innovative approach to family learning and Shabbat celebration. Temple Isaiah families gather 2 Shabbat mornings and one Shabbat evening a month at the Temple. On Shabbat morning the families pray together, teach each other Torah and experience parallel learning for adults and children on //middot//. On Friday evenings families gather together to learn about Shabbat and then join the rest of the congregation for services. Once a month families have Shabbat celebrations in their own homes using discussion guides to facilitate Shabbat Family learning.
 * Temple Isaiah, Los Angeles CA** (Reform, 1050 households units)

Temple Sinai of Roslyn (Reform, 1000 Households) Temple Sinai's Hevra program, an alternative education model piloted in 2007-08, brings together families with children in grades 4 - 6 to share in intergenerational Shabbat and Holiday programming. These workshops provide opportunities for families to pray, learn, and eat together in creating a "Hevra." This year, the proposed expanded program will meet 15 times, approximately twice per month, during the upcoming school year. Each of these sessions will pair Hevra II families with another interest group within the congregation, providing an opportunity for congregants from diverse groups to connect to one another and build community. By collaborating with other auxiliaries and committees within our congregation, we have the potential to link congregants who might otherwise have never encountered one another. We will be introducing families to options for further involvement, and leadership, in the synagogue. We also have the opportunity to model, for our young students, a lifelong commitment to Jewish learning and action.

**United Synagogue of Hoboken, NJ** (Conservative, 250 household units) "My Jewish Neighborhood" will facilitate lay-led, home-based celebrations of Shabbat and holidays by connecting Jewish households with other Jewish households in their immediate neighborhoods. Hoboken's compact urban environment allows us to recreate some aspects of the tight-knit urban immigrant Jewish community that existed here a century ago, where family and Jewish celebration were an organic part of the life of a city block. We have divided the mile-square town of Hoboken and environs will be divided into six neighborhoods, so that each synagogue member is also part of a 'sub-community' of just a few blocks. Throughout the year, each neighborhood will host a series of hands-on intergenerational Shabbat and holiday events to take place in individual homes. The programs will be planned by synagogue staff and lay leadership, with most of the implementation carried out by residents of the neighborhoods, after training for these lay hosts and facilitators in advance of each program. Participants may find these home-based programs to be more accessible and more easily replicable than professional-led 'institutional' programs, and having Jewish events taking place literally "around the corner" from most Jews in Hoboken lowers the barriers to participation for marginally affiliated Jews and those who are new to the community. Additional events throughout the year will bring people from the various neighborhoods together for study, celebration and an end-of-year Shabbaton.