Author:

The first sign of progress, like the soon expected snowdrops of Spring, have poked their heads from the dirt of USCJ bureaucracy. With the consolidation of multiple offices in Canada, the Northeast and New York, all synagogue members have been invited to receive information directly. Northeast District is made up of the Canadian, Connecticut Valley, Empire, and New England regions. It includes Ontario and the Canadian provinces to its east, New England (except Greenwich, Connecticut), and New York state north of the New York City metropolitan area."While it is vital for the lay and professional leadership of our synagogue to be subscribed to this list, we encourage you to let your entire congregation know that they can be part of this community. Here’s what one needs to do in order to subscribe to this list:" 1)           Go to http://uscj.org/scripts/wa.exe?A0=NORTHEAST-ANNOUNCE 2)           Click on “Join or Leave NORTHEAST-ANNOUNCE” 3)           Enter your Name…

The Solomon Schechter Awards program is one of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism's longest continuously running programs and is a fitting tribute to the memory of Solomon Schechter. When Dr. Schechter founded the United Synagogue in 1913, he hoped that our congregations' standards of our congregations would rise continuously. Since 1949, several hundred congregations have been recognized for excellence in various aspects of synagogue life. Dr. Schechter's stress on meaningful synagogue activity and his emphasis on the synagogue as one of Judaism's core institutions are reflected in general in our mission as a movement, and in particular in the selection and presentation of these awards. The Solomon Schechter Award rewards extraordinary characteristics and certain unusual and outstanding aspects or achievements that go beyond the expected norms. Award winners deserve recognition for the originality and quality of their programs, for their presentations and achievements. We congratulate them, as well as…

January 2010The following is the first of several updates from the “Northeast District” on the transformation of four regions of USCJ into the Northeast District. The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism held its Biennial Convention in Cherry Hill, NJ. from December 6-10, 2009. New by-laws for USCJ were adopted (http://uscj.org/images/bylaws_2009.pdf), approving the phased implementation of the reduction of our current 15 Regions into 6 Districts, in order to provide member congregations with better services by both professional staff and lay leaders.In our area, the Connecticut Valley, Empire, New England and Canadian Regions will be combined into the Northeast District. The past president, president, and president-elects of these four Regions have formed a transformation steering committee to implement the transition to the Northeast District, to be completed by December 2010.The following are milestones in the transformation process important to all synagogues in the new District. In January the transformation steering committee…

By Janet S. TigerThe Jews settled the moon in 2053, just about five years after the end of the Islamic Wars of the 40s, where the Middle East, and Israel, of course, had been obliterated by nuclear weapons. The two million Jews remaining throughout the rest of the world – less than 100,000 total in all the Islamic countries- banded together and purchased the dark side of the moon, which no other companies or people wished to colonize. Great transports were arranged via the 62,000 mile space elevator and the Space Shuttle and every Jew on Earth – including anyone who claimed any Jewish heritage whatsoever – left to go to a place where no one could blame them for anything. The Earth rejoiced – happily rid of all Jews. All friends of the Jews had 'disappeared' and there were huge parties throughout all of Sweden and the rest of…