Sacred Strategies ─ Transforming Synagogues from Functional to Visionary

Tells how eight American synagogues became visionary congregations -- 'entrepreneurial, experimental, and committed to engaging members' -- and serves as a primer for other congregations seeking to join them.

Isa Aron is professor of Jewish education at the Rhea Hirsch School of Education, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and was the founding director of the Experiment in Congregational Education, a project of the RHSOE now in its eighteenth year. She is the author of Becoming a Congregation of Learners and The Self-Renewing Congregation. Steven M. Cohen is research professor of Jewish social policy at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and director of the Berman Jewish Policy Archive at NYU Wagner. With Arnold M. Eisen he wrote The Jew Within, and with Charles Liebman he wrote Two Worlds of Judaism: The Israeli and American Experiences. His earlier books include American Modernity & Jewish Identity and American Assimilation or Jewish Revival? Lawrence Hoffman is the Barbara and Stephen Friedman Professor of Liturgy, Worship and Ritual, and the co-founder of Synagogue 2000 (now Synagogue 3000). For over thirty years, he has taught classes in liturgy, ritual, theology, and synagogue leadership. He has written or edited over 35 books, including Rethinking Synagogues: A New Vocabulary for Congregational Life, which is widely used by congregations of all denominations engaged in transformational change. Ari Y. Kelman is an assistant professor of American studies at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of Station Identification: A Cultural History of Yiddish Radio and co-author of a number of influential studies of contemporary Jewish identity, community, and culture.