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Passover a lure to bring back Jews

From low-key seders to supermarket displays, Jewish officials use the holiday to turn around a decline in affiliation.

By SHERRI DAY
Published April 11, 2006

Rabbi Aaron Schonburn stands near Albertson's Passover display and waits for just the right moment.

He looks for grocery shoppers whose carts hold gefilte fish and matzo. Then, he makes his move, proffering religious education materials, holiday recipes and a list of community-sponsored seders.

This is Passover 2006. Target audience: unaffiliated Jews.

The holiday, which begins at sundown tonight, commemorates the Jews' exodus from slavery in Egypt. Stretching eight days, Passover celebrations largely focus on food and family. But for thousands of Jews without local connections to relatives or synagogues, the holiday often passes unobserved.

That's where efforts like Schonburn's come in. Religious leaders call it "Public Space Judaism."

"It's about helping people connect to the Jewish community and letting them know there's something out there for you," said Schonburn, the assistant rabbi at Congregation Beth David in Saratoga, Calif.

From Tucson to Tampa, mounting concern about declines in the American Jewish population have spurred many religious leaders to take action. They hope to reunite unaffiliated Jews, or people who are not members of a synagogue or Jewish community group, with their culture and faith. If organizers succeed, they may stave off the effects of intermarriages and religious indifference.

It's "an issue that needs to be addressed year round," said Carol Lieber, interim executive director of Tampa Jewish Family Services. "We're told that the Jewish Community is actually twice or more as big as it appears through membership in synagogues because the majority of Jewish people in the Tampa Bay area don't affiliate with a synagogue.

Bay area Jewish leaders estimate that about 65,000 Jews live in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties . More than 60 percent of them are believed to be unaffiliated with a synagogue, mirroring a national trend.

Efforts to get Jews to affiliate have increased in the wake of the National Jewish Population Survey. Released in 2002, it recorded the intermarriage rate for Jews at 47 percent, troubling some Jewish leaders because only one-third of children from those families are being raised Jewish.

Passover appeals to the National Jewish Outreach Program's reclamation efforts. The group's "Passover Across America" program encourages synagogues to hold explanatory seders. The group, also based in New York, offered congregations $1,000 to advertise their seders in non-Jewish publications. They also provided free English-language versions of the Haggadah, a book of readings and songs used in Passover observances to tell the Exodus story.

So far, 22 synagogues from Boca Raton to Las Vegas have signed on, said Rabbi Yitzchak Rosenbaum, the program's associate director. The group also offers five-week courses in Hebrew, basic Judaism and Jewish history.

"We feel that people walk away from Judaism and they don't even know what they're walking away from," Rosenbaum said.

Billed as an un-seder, the "Greater Seder" in Tampa seeks to give Jews with no Passover plans an opportunity to meet and have fun for the holiday. The seder, which will be held at the Rusty Pelican restaurant Thursday, will feature the traditional religious requirements with a twist.

Organizers hope to inject levity with songs and skits, such as singing There's No Seder Like Our Seder to the tune of There's No Business Like Show Business. '

"We're not going to have to listen to an half an hour of me saying "You should be a Jew for this reason, and join the temple,"' said event organizer Rande Friedman. "It's "Just come,' and if you decide you want to join a temple, then there are people from other temples coming."

Jerry Slutzky describes himself as a "two-day Jew," saying he goes to temple only on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashana. Because his family lives in Chicago, Passover seders are usually low on his priority list. But this year, he plans to go to the Greater Seder. Still, that doesn't mean he will go to temple more.

"It's the culture of the religion I love," said Slutzky, a financial adviser from Pasco County. "I don't need to be in a temple or a physical structure to get enjoyments out of the holiday."

Rosenbaum and other religious leaders aren't discouraged by that attitude. "If even one Jew finds a seder that they weren't going to and they were going to stay home, that's enough," Rosenbaum said.

Sherri Day can be reached at sday@sptimes.com or 813 226-3405.

[Last modified April 12, 2006, 00:06:58]