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miJEWtiae
By WJW Staff , Rockville, Md
akredo@washingtonjewishweek.com
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
UPDATE: USCJ LEADER RESPONDS TO BREAK AWAY GROUP - Conservative group mulls break away from USCJ
Adam Kredo
UPDATE: Rabbi Steven Wernick, the USCJ's new executive vice president, said a reporter’s call was his first inkling of Bonim’s break away plans.
“I’m a little shocked” that Bonim would consider an alternative, he said, calling the group’s actions divisive. “I think their demands are completely illogical and not representative” of a desire to see real change, he said.
"I think it's really unfortunate that Bonim would do this," Wernick said, especially in light of the USCJ's recent changes, which include reducing the number of regions from 15 to six and eliminating five positions in the main office, with more layoffs likely to come, as JTA and other news organizations have reported.
Wernick's overall aim is to make United Synagogue smaller and better capable of delivering services to individual congregations.
Steve Rabinowitz, president of Rabinowitz/Dorf, which serves as an adviser to the USCJ, said that Bonim is "more interested in tearing down the [United Synagogue] than rebuilding it."
Rabinowitz dismissed Bonim's "latest 'look at me' " tactic, saying that the group is demanding too much, too soon.
Wernick, he added, performed an impressive feat in convincing USCJ's board to pass wide-ranging plans for change so early in his tenure.
"The guy has only been there for two months," Rabinowitz said. "What [does Bonim] mean" when it says, "it's too late?" he asked.
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INITIAL BLOG: A malcontent group of congregational lay leaders is considering developing an alternative to the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the Conservative movement’s congregational arm.
In a late afternoon press release, Bonim, a group of disgruntled congregational lay leaders who have pushed USCJ to change its ways, announced that it has raised $50,000 "to consider" forming an "alternative entity" to the USCJ, the group wrote in its release.
Bonim will "study the matter" over the next three months, the release says.
Although the USCJ's new executive vice president, Rabbi Steve Wernick, recently announced that the organization would be reforming its structure to better serve congregations - something Bonim had griped about in the past - the dissident group wrote that "it is essentially to little, too late."
The USCJ's reform efforts, the group writes, amount to "tinkering around the edges." Primarily, it says, USCJ is "focused on self preservation rather than delivering value to their members."
Bonim also outlines its vision for the future: "After multiple efforts to engage [USCJ] on the issue of value," the group is contemplating a new "entity" that would "focus exclusively on assisting congregations, large and small, in four core areas: membership, fundraising, leadership development and programming."
David Sacks, the president of Congregation Har Tzeon-Agudath Achim in Silver Spring, is quoted in the statement: "A new association of synagogues could be focused on lay leaders rather than world leaders, on concrete actions rather than perpetual discussion, and on constituent services rather than empire building."
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