[I just posted this in the community
An interesting Letter To The Editor in this week’s Los Angeles Jewish Journal has gotten me thinking. Let me quote the relevant portion of the letter:
Ask, as was done by the last Los Angeles Jewish Population Survey, the potential congregants, of whom 71 percent attended synagogue at least once a year, what were all their reasons for joining or not joining a synagogue? A quite a different picture emerges.
The most important reason for joining or not was: 1— quality of the rabbi (80 percent reported as an important or most important reason), followed by, 2 — importance of children’s schooling, 3 — friendliness of congregation, 4 — cost, 5 — the respondent’s personal religious observance, 6 — the quality of cantor or liturgy, and finally, the least cited important reason was, 7 — distance from home, which only 56 percent, of which 25 percent said was very important and 31 percent said was important to their joining a synagogue.
Looking at this in terms of my congregational history. My immediately prior congregation, which was small, had rabbinical trouble, and a tiny school also had trouble growing. I think they were placing their emphasis on items 3 and 4. . Why did we stay at this congregation? We were about to leave 3 years ago, but a new rabbi came in who we really liked. The school also had more children then, with a curriculum we liked, driven by the new rabbi. Thus, we went straight line with the ranking. After the rabbi left, they’ve been placing more emphasis on items 3, 4, 5, and 6. I think they are leaving the school as is, which for us (having a daughter 4 years away from her Bat Mitzvah) doesn’t work. Thus, we shopped.
Our new congregation seems to place the emphasis on items 1 and 2. Why did we join them? We liked the rabbis (1) and the quality of the school (2)… and they were very friendly (3). They were more expensive than we liked, and further away, but the other factors offset it.
So, given the survey was 7 year ago, does it hold for you as well? Why did you join your present congregation?
