Synagogues making changes in financial support tradition

Like congregants at most U.S. syagogues, Temple Sinai members paid an annual dues depending on whether they fit one of a few broad categories, such as family, single or retired. Those struggling financially could ask for a reduction.

Now the synagogue is joining a small but growing number of synagogues asking members to pledge what they feel they can give, and then participate with no questions asked.

It appears to be the first synagogue in Western Pennsylvania to make the switch.

The synagogue board voted for the change after a long study, which included consulting their own members and other synagogues that made this switch.

“We want to change the conversation from a transactional conversation to being part of a community,” said Nancy Gale, president of the synagogue board. While past generations of synagogue members accepted the dues system as a matter of course, it increasingly seemed to members to be “akin to membership in a country club.”

And, added assistant treasurer Jerry Katz: “It’s not just a financial thing.” Like many other segments of the American religious population, Jews are seeing a growing number of their own, particularly younger adults, avoiding affiliation with any congregation. The board wanted to remove the dues system if it was becoming a barrier to participating.

Synagogue leaders are confident that members will voluntarily give at about the same level. “We’ve always had an engaged, active community. That’s something that’s defined us,” said Lynn Rubenson, who chairs the temple’s marketing committee. “We feel our members have the strong sense of the traditions they want to support.”

The pledge system begins with the next fiscal year.

The congregation, part of the liberal Reform stream of Judaism, has more than 700 members. Current annual dues are about $2,400 per family and $1,300 for an individual.

According to a study by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, about 36 percent of U.S. households donated money for religious or spiritual purposes in 2012, the most recent year studied. Those included gifts to congregations, such as synagogues or churches, as well as to broadcast ministries, but did not count gifts to faith-based charities or schools.

Of the families that did give to religion, their median rate of giving was about 1.5 percent of income, according to the IU study. (Only about 7 percent of Americans gave one-tenth of income to religion, a level that some teach as being a biblical “tithe.”)

While some find the practice of charging dues to be off-putting, it actually began as a movement to promote equality in synagogues, according to a 2015 study published by UJA Federation New York. In the 18th and 19th centuries, synagogues often rented out pews (as did many churches), with the best seats in the house going for the highest price.

The synagogue dues system arose in the early 20th century, allowing everyone to sit where they chose and eliminating the visible display of who had more money and who had less.

“But many American Jews today have lost the sense that the dues system is egalitarian. Instead, dues and the policies that surround their compliance can function as institutional barriers that separate those who can pay from those who cannot,” said the report.

The researchers documented 26 synagogues nationwide that had moved from dues to pledges, most in just the last few years. It’s small compared to the thousands of synagogues nationwide, but the report indicated more were doing so even as its research was completed. All the synagogues are in more progressive Reform or Conservative denominations or are independent; researchers speculated that Orthodox synagogues haven’t felt the need to experiment because a sense of financial commitment may accompany a stricter religious observance.

The closest synagogue listed in the report was in Eastern Pennsylvania.

“I’m unaware of another synagogue in the Pittsburgh area considering a financial strategy similar to Temple Sinai, but it is a growing national model,” said Josh Sayles, director of the Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.

Under the dues system, even though a financially struggling member could ask for an abatement, some synagogues required proof of financial duress, such as a tax return.

At Temple Sinai, no proof was needed, but the process was still uncomfortable, members said. “Nobody got turned away, but you had to ask,” said Jerry Katz, the temple’s assistant treasurer.

Now, a member “might end up paying the same amount but you feel better about it. So now maybe you’re more engaged” in synagogue life.

Mara Kaplan chairs Temple Sinai’s disability task force, which has been looking for ways to eliminate not only physical barriers, such as steps that are difficult to climb, but social ones as well.

“There are a lot of people with disabilities on fixed incomes who have never felt comfortable even coming here,” she said. “We’re very hopeful they’ll feel, ‘I can make whatever pledge I want and be as equal a member as anybody else.’ That’s a core part of who we are.”

Drew Barkley, the executive director of the congregation, said that when newcomers are considering joining a synagogue, “One of the first questions is, ‘How much is it going to cost?’ ”

Answering that question now is “so much easier.”