Shir Tikvah still independent

By EDWARD HERSHEY

article created on: 2008-10-01T00:00:00

After more than a year of research and deliberation, members of Congregation Shir Tikvah voted overwhelmingly to remain independent.

With 156 adult members voting—84 percent of those of individuals eligible representing 90 percent of Shir Tikvah’s member families—82 percent voted to continue without affiliation with the remainder split about evenly between the other choices on the mail ballot—Reform and Reconstructionist.

“The high voter turnout shows how much our members care about our community,” said Shir Tikvah President Leslie Dolin, “It also indicates to me that people are for the most part satisfied with the way our community is now, but are also interested in Shir Tikvah’s future, and want to help shape it.”

Lay leaders of the 6-year-old east side congregation set out to examine whether to affiliate in 2007 based on two major objectives. First, leaders said, with so many duties falling to those most active in congregational affairs, they wanted to determine if affiliation might bring added resources and support. Then, too, they said, young congregations typically decide whether to affiliate for spiritual, ideological or other reasons after about five years.

A committee was formed to examine all options and eventually narrowed the choice to independence or affiliation with the Reform or Reconstructionist movements, which provided information and dispatched representatives to well-attended meetings at the sanctuary Shir Tikvah shares with the Bridgeport Community Church on Northeast 76th Avenue just north of Northeast Glisan.

The committee also researched what resources and support might be available to an independent congregation and delivered a report to members, who were invited to discuss all options and concerns at yet another meeting before ballots were mailed.

“The process of researching, discussing and questioning which preceded the vote was fascinating,” said Rabbi Ariel Stone. “Not being affiliated, coming from different backgrounds of belonging or not, we were able to focus on the question of affiliation as a Jewish communal practice, and determine its value thoughtfully.

“If we did affiliate, what would it articulate about us? If we did not, how else might we meet our ethical responsibilities as participatory members of the larger Jewish world? The process left me once again very happy to be part of a congregation that consciously seeks to be a learning congregation.”

Members were invited to share their thoughts in a voter’s pamphlet mailed to all congregants prior to the election. Thus it became clear even before the votes were tabulated that a significant majority favored continuing on an independent path.

“This vote, and the painstaking process we used to generate it, speaks volumes about who we are as a community,” said one congregant, J. D. Kleinke, an amateur musician who accompanies Stone on guitar and other instruments during worship services. “These results speak of a collective voice at Shir Tikvah that says ‘while we are Jews of all ages, we are a brand new generation of Jews, and we don’t fit into any box you’ve ever heard of.’”