Is There a Future For The Conservative Synagogue?

Will Synagogues Go The Way Of The Kosher Deli?

Is There a Future for the Conservative Synagogue?

Years ago, I gave a sermon that charted the decline of Jewish observance and Jewish uniqueness, by the evolution of the Jewish restaurant.
At first there were inexpensive dairy restaurants for immigrant Jews. They served bagels and lox, blintzes and soups, kasha varnishes, and creamy spinach, fish and vegetable entrees. It was Jewish and therefore it went without saying it was kosher. It was a place for working class immigrant Jews to hang out with their buddies and be comfortable in America amongst their own. At the same time and more widespread in the country there were Jewish delicatessen restaurants, that were all meat and because they were Jewish it went without saying that they were kosher. In New York city there were at its peak over 1500 Jewish delis.
As the years passed and we progressed two generations the delis added dairy. Jewish delis looked a lot like Katz’s in New York (without the orgasms) or Pumpernickels or Rascal House in Miami Beach. You could get a mile high pastrami sandwich and a cream of coconut dairy pie for dessert. Clearly it was Jewish but that no longer meant it was kosher. What you couldn’t get was bacon with your eggs.
Meanwhile bagels went American with younger generations adding it to English Muffins as a breakfast option with no knowledge that it was a Jewish food. Assimilation was advancing rapidly.
New York now has less than 50 Jewish delis and there is a whole literature about the decline, and a movement for saving the delis. How they are being saved is illustrative of what this blog is all about, which is the survival of the synagogue, and we will get there shortly.
The newest generation of Jewish restaurateurs want to save the deli by making it more of an American restaurant with a slight nostalgic homage to what they remember of their grandmother’s cooking or their grandfather’s deli. You want chicken soup and a matzo ball you can get it perhaps with an Asian fusion of flavor. You want bacon with your eggs or on your burger, no problem and if you want to finally exorcise the ancient taboo of meat and milk go to Katz’s deli for an “authentic” Pastrami Reuben smothered in melted cheese. Here is a case study for those of us in South Florida.
There was a deli in Hialeah called Stephen’s Deli. It was opened in 1954. It closed a few years ago and I know you are asking, “there was a deli in Hialeah?”
A year and a half later it reopened as Kush by Stephens, in the same but now renovated location. It is the creation of Matt Kuscher, the successful owner of a number of Kush restaurants. Of course, Matt’s grandfather owned a deli, and he tried to keep much of what he remembered from the menu and décor of his grandfather’s restaurant, but he has fused traditional elements of Jewish cooking with local Cuban influences, leading to creations like pastrami nachos and the Newman’s Jewban sandwich, with pulled pork and corned beef.
Would his grandfather be proud or ashamed?
I honestly don’t know but this is what “Jewish Delis” have become to survive and not go extinct. This begs the question, how much change do you need to have, to save something and in the end have you saved it or recreated it so that its original creators no longer recognize it?
I raise this question because it has been bothering me since before Covid but has exploded as a serious question 2 years into the pandemic. This question was brought to a head by an article by David Suissa in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles called,” HOW WILL SYNAGOGUES REINVENT THEMSELVES? (Hint: It Won’t Be with Zoom)”
His premise is that Covid accelerated a trend that existed in Synagogues even before Covid. I want to apply his article specifically to the Conservative synagogue though it is not dissimilar to what has happened to Reform as well.
Covid sent us running from the synagogue and into the isolated and distant virtual world of Zoom and YouTube. Will this last or will we return?
Suissa asked Rabbis and found that many feared synagogue life was forever altered.
In the past, belonging to a shule was like buying a basketful of opportunities. Many went to shule not just to pray but to see their friends, to schmooze, to have a lechayim or to sit for lunch and catch up. Collectively people raised their kids there, attended life cycle events, and came for High Holy Day services together. They bonded to each other and to their shule.
To be honest a lot of this collective bundle had started to fall apart years before Covid. Most Conservative synagogues were experiencing smaller attendance and smaller memberships. The population in many synagogues were elderly, and children were fewer and far between. Jews were not having many babies, and 2 generations of mixed marriage had diminished the pool of parents and children interested in religious Judaism.
Phony rabbis running Bar Mitzvah packages with no religious school prerequisite continued to gut the younger family population of the synagogue while giving parents exactly what they wanted at a price in dollars and commitment that they requested. The “Deli” was no longer “kosher”, but perhaps the changes being asked for might save the deli i.e., the shule?
The Conservative movement had changed in response to the changing market. Three day a week religious school were now two and even one day a week. While arguing that Conservative Judaism was a Halachic movement, many questionable changes were permitted that rapidly became normative in many congregations.
Musical instruments were widely used at Shabbat services even though the Law Committee rejected at least three attempts to permit it during my tenure on the committee. Somehow these “concert services” were the new savior for synagogue attendance. Years later with a few coastal exceptions, attendance has not dramatically increased in most congregations and the steady decline has continued.
And then came Covid!
It was a challenging time for sure. After the gut punch of hard lockdowns Conservative synagogues went digital. I understand that need especially when we feared to go outside even to buy groceries. It was important to be able to worship together and study together without leaving the house. The Law Committee studied ways to do this in a halachic way as a temporary solution to a crisis. What in Hebrew is called Shaat dechak. Some followed their guidance, some used it as a cover to allow all kinds of technology to enter the arena that was never permitted. Once added these changes tend to never go away. Even more traditional Conservative Rabbis have had to accept that which was never permitted by the Law Committee but done by other congregations. These changes are now seen as established practice and they go on from there to push the envelope.
As shules increasingly spend on more and better ways to “produce” video services, they are investing in perpetuating their diminishing membership’s separation from their buildings and from their community of real people. As Suissa warns in his article,” There’s a real risk that the more we have online, the more we will increase our isolation, the more we will get comfortable with it”.
Congregant’s relationship with their Rabbis will be similar to the relationship I have with Rachel Maddow. I like listening to her and I learn from her, but she does not know me, and I do not know her. What happens when I need my Rabbi?
When I had a congregation of 1100 families or over 4000 souls, I clearly did not know everyone, but the ones that I interacted with live, at services or in class, or in the hospital or at the cemetery were the ones I had the strongest connection with.
Zoom is great for a pandemic emergency, but it may be fatal for the Jewish community.
To go back to my restaurant analogy, is it wise or effective to save the Jewish Deli by first becoming not kosher and later not really a Jewish restaurant? Is that what we want to do? And if so, do we wake up one day to find that metaphorically at kiddush they are serving Newman’s Jewban sandwich?