Rodef Shalom, Temple Sinai members react to news of possible unification

Unification, it appears, isn’t always a unifier.

While many congregants of both Temple Sinai and Rodef Shalom Congregation are excited about the prospect of a merger, some others are concerned with issues of transparency, a perceived lack of critical information and differences in culture.

Several Temple Sinai board members, and one former board member, criticized the decision process.

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None of those criticizing the process wanted to be identified by name.

Important questions, one Temple Sinai board member claimed, were not answered by members of the steering committee charged with leading the unification process.

That board member also was troubled by both the brit the board was asked to approve — the agreement that the two congregations wanted to merge — and a vote on a resolution by the board recommending the unification. They said the board “voted on the brit with modifications written in by hand,” and that they didn’t know “if those modifications were also approved by Rodef.”

Voting on the resolution was also an issue, the Temple Sinai board member said.

“I looked at what they passed out that we were about to vote on and realized that it was different from what we were emailed three hours before. They emailed us a draft resolution three hours before the meeting. There was no time for discussion. It was rushed through.”

For those reasons, the board member contended, a contingent of the board voted against the brit. According to the meeting’s minutes on the Temple Sinai website, about 25% of the board voted against the brit in an initial vote. In a second vote to approve the resolution recommending the unification, 17 members of the board voted yes, two no and one person abstained.

Another Temple Sinai board member said they weren’t opposed to the unification but felt that other alternatives weren’t explored and that questions remained unanswered.

“I feel like a lot of assumptions have been made and we haven’t really done due diligence,” they said.

And they are concerned about moving the congregation to Rodef Shalom’s building, which is in Shadyside.

“As a board member, as a community member, it’s very much about location. It’s about what does it mean to have the only Reform synagogue in the city of Pittsburgh leaving Squirrel Hill, which is, in my mind, the center of Jewish life in Pittsburgh, especially with the rise of antisemitism around the world, in our country and in our city.”

Unification, they said, doesn’t have to mean merging the two congregations into one in Rodef Shalom’s building.

“There’s a lot of administration, a lot of business processes that could be combined. When we started this 18 months ago, they threw out a lot of different options around unification. It could mean we share a religious, school or administrative staff. It could mean we completely unify. I don’t know that we’ve investigated any of those other options.

“I’m just not sure this is the right plan,” they said.

A former Temple Sinai board member said a merger would mean fewer options.

“They’re taking away choices. When you only have one Reform congregation, it’s that or potentially nothing, right? It’s going to drive people like me to not affiliate.”

Rodef Shalom’s building, they noted, has issues that conflict with what they understand to be longstanding ethical standards of Temple Sinai.

They claimed that the entirety of the bimah was not accessible, saying that “accessibility and inclusivity is one of the tenets of Sinai.”

Other members of Temple Sinai said they are concerned about giving up their building and combining two synagogue cultures that might not entwine easily.

One Temple Sinai member, who formerly was affiliated with Tree of Life when it merged with Or L’Simcha, said that experience makes them wary about this potential unification.

“We had very different cultures, very different styles, and we kind of got forced into being together which didn’t work out so great,” they said.

“The two shuls are very different. It doesn’t feel like that’s being addressed, at all.”

When Deb Polk first learned of the unification talks and Temple Sinai’s hunt for volunteers, she offered to help. She ultimately chaired the Governance Committee created to help explore the unification.

Unification, she said, makes sense to her.

“The analogy I have in mind is that it’s like when you have a big university, you have resources to do a lot of things you wouldn’t necessarily be able to do at a tiny, small college,” she said. “We can be more efficient and have resources left over to do things we haven’t even imagined yet.”

Polk said she doesn’t see an issue arising from the two congregations’ cultures.

“We’re all Reform Jews who have chosen to affiliate and our congregations are within a mile of each other,” she said. “These are city congregations. My guess is that we have more in common than we have that’s different.”

As for the availability of information, Polk said, the board was transparent.

“We were getting emails and if someone wanted information, I don’t think there was ever an effort to withhold information,” she said.

Like Polk, Eric Schaffer volunteered to help examine the possible unification. The Rodef Shalom member served on the steering committee that helped lead talks between the two congregations. It’s no surprise that he’s a proponent of the unification.

“The more people think about it and the more they talk about it in our different congregations, the more it’s not just that we’re comfortable, it’s that we really like the idea,” he said.

He said the worry over a culture clash has been overblown.

“It’s easy for me to talk with people at Temple Sinai because they are our friends. They’re our neighbors. Our kids have grown up together,” he said.

Both congregations, he said, strove to be transparent and to provide all the information required to make a thoughtful decision.

“The amount of diligence that has gone on with the steering committee, the communication, particularly that the presidents have had with their boards — there has been a tremendous amount of study from the beginning,” he said.

Schaffer said that was purposeful.

“You can’t make a decision based on emotion if you’re going to make an intelligent decision,” he said.

Temple Sinai member Sharon Werner led the legal committee examining a possible unification. She said she is excited about the possibility of unifying.

“Especially having kids who are at the age of beginning religious school. The idea of combining with another synagogue and making the class size even bigger would be more exciting for kids. I think it adds an extra layer to their Jewish education,” she said.

Both congregations, she said, have held “countless” town hall meetings to address concerns.

The unification, she said, will most likely experience bumps in the road and won’t be perfect for everyone but, she said, “this is, for sure, the right move.”

Rodef Shalom and Temple Sinai are holding separate meetings on June 8 to approve, or not, the possible unification. PJC

David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.