During visits to hundreds of synagogues across North America, Rabbi Steven Wernick, United Synagogue's executive vice president, heard a consistent message - synagogues need leadership development programs so that they can identify and train future leaders, Kathy Elias, United Synagogue's Mid-Atlantic district director, said.

United Synagogue has begun to build and transform on an already successful curriculum to start training leaders to go back to their own congregations and train the next crop of leaders themselves in that district.

"For two years, we had a curriculum that trained new and existing leaders in the former New Jersey region," Kathy said. That program, the Si Schwartz Leadership Development Institute, was an extremely successful eight-session curriculum that "developed those leaders' skills sets on how to be board members and committee chairs, how to manage volunteers, about the dynamics of membership engagement." But this year the model has shifted to training the trainers. "We are taking the curriculum and handing it off to the kehillot" - the word means community in Hebrew and United Synagogue has chosen to use in place of "congregation" or "synagogue" in the belief that it is more inclusive - "so they can create their own leadership development tracks."

The Mid-Atlantic district project will include three sessions, so that synagogues can plan a structure for training leaders and then train their trainers to use the Si Schwartz curriculum with the leaders in place now. Kathy and Rabbi Charles Savenor, METNY's district director, are revising the Schwartz curriculum to that end, working with consultant Bob Leventhal of the Alban Institute.

Beginning in February, Mid-Atlantic district synagogues will be invited to send a three-person team made up of lay and professional leaders - ideally the rabbi, executive director, and president - to the first two meetings. Before the third meeting that team is asked chose a trainer, who may or may not be among the leaders at the first two meetings but must be at that last one to learn how to use the curriculum.

To read the rest of the article on the New Leadership Development Program click here.

Does your congregational board need a leadership training session? Contact Rabbi Savenor at savenor@uscj.org.  

On December 20th, the United Nations General Assembly will vote on a resolution to demand action on the horrendous human rights abuses currently being perpetrated by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Iran180 is circulating a critical petition drive in support of this resolution which we will deliver to the UN. You can find our petition online at www.iran180.org . Please make a point of adding your name to this essential effort, and be sure to share it with all of your friends.

We must send a strong message to the UN that documented instances of torture, degrading punishment such as floggings, and the excessive imposition of the death penalty will NOT be tolerated. 

Additionally, over the course of the next twelve days, the Iran180 coalition will raise our voices in protest of these atrocities. On December 10th, International Human Rights Day, we will be appearing at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza opposite the UN - visit our blog to learn more about this effort, there just might be a special appearance by an old "friend"... 

Please share your thoughts with us on our blog, and also be sure to connect with us on Twitter and Facebook for real-time updates about the situation on the ground in Iran, our coalitions efforts, and more.

If you have not already joined Iran180, we welcome you to join this urgent cause today.

Check out Rabbi Savenor's D'var Torah on MyJewishLearning.com
Parshat Vayigash - Joseph's Moment of Truth
Revealing his true identity, the viceroy cannot control his emotions.

Check out this interesting article from msnbc.com.

JTS Library Open HouseYou're Invited

    

Please join the next Open House at The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary on Tuesday, December 14, 2010, from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. Library curators will be on hand to guide you through a selection of exhibits in and around The Library:

•  Love and Marriage
• Bernard Picart: Biblical and Religious Prints of the Eighteenth Century
• Jewish Musical Response to German KulturThe Diaries of Mordecai Kaplan, Digitized
• Genesis Blossoms
• Volumes

 Registration is required for this event; RSVP to Hector Guzman at heguzman@jtsa.edu or (212) 678-8075.

The Library is located at 3080 Broadway (at 122nd street) on New York City's
Upper West Side and is accessible by the 1 train and the M4 and M104 buses.