Toronto’s midtown Beth Tzedec Congregation recently sent emails to the inaugural group of those under age 40 who received free memberships in the summer of 2022, asking if they wanted to remain free members for another year.

And while leadership of the largest Conservative synagogue in Canada is taking an optimistic view of the early returns, other observers in Toronto’s Jewish community are waiting to evaluate its success, and cautioning that the gains may be short-lived—or lead to bringing in members who feel no obligation to contribute to synagogue life.

“(It’s been) outstanding. Use whatever word of extreme joy that you could possibly figure out. It’s been phenomenal. Far outside of our expectations,” said Beth Tzedec’s senior rabbi, Steven Wernick. 

“When we launched this program, we expected that we would have 30 to 40, maybe 50 new households a year… But instead, we opened the doors and there was a tsunami of interest. We now have 950 households under the age of 40, which is 500 more households than we had this time last year.”

Of the 500 new households, over 350 are brand new to the shul, and a further 100 were previous members who had been unaffiliated for three or more years. (Beth Tzedec has around 5,000 members in total.)

Beth Tzedec decided to make the “Generations” offer in response to declining rates of revenue, membership and engagement, especially among younger Jews. These trends have become the norm for most North American non-Orthodox synagogues, meaning many Jewish community leaders will be keeping a close eye on Beth Tzedec in the coming years.

If their Generations Membership is successful, then Beth Tzedec could serve as a model for revitalizing shul culture.

Robert Brym, a sociology professor at the University of Toronto who co-authored the 2018 Survey of Jews in Canada, believes younger Jews are less interested in joining because they are more assimilated than their parents and grandparents were.

“People are now more integrated in Canada and have lots of opportunities for spending their lives in ways other than Jewishly. The Canadian Jewish community 50, 75 years ago was very insular and didn’t have opportunities in the wider community for social engagement, political engagement, or cultural engagement like they do now. And that’s why we’re a different universe,” he said.

Leah Mauer, 35, is on the board of Beth Tzedec. She joined eight years ago when she married her husband, who grew up attending there. She believes financial concerns were preventing many people in her generation from joining congregations, which is why so many more households joined Beth Tzedec than expected.

“There are so many expenses that we have, and contrary to generations before, we have to make harder choices, especially when it comes to how we live Jewishly, because the cost of everything is so much higher,” she said.

“So I think it was really wonderful of Beth Tzedec to say we’re going to take that shul membership piece off the table, and if you want to be part of our community, we just want you to be part of our community.

“It really showed an understanding of where my peers and I are at, and the fact that we do want community, but we are making these hard choices because our financial situations are a lot different from those of our parents.”         

Prior to the initiative, singles paid anywhere from $50 to $750, while couples paid from $500 to $1,400. Members over 40 pay a “fair share” depending on family income.

Beth Tzedec is not the first shul to offer free dues to part or all of their membership. The results from congregations who had already undertaken similar initiatives informed their decision, as did multiple studies into both contemporary Jewish life and millennial values.

“You can’t make the same assumption of membership that you did (about) their parents. It’s not so much that money prevents them from joining, it’s that the culture of money at synagogues is not something they aspire to. You have to demonstrate the value added first,” Rabbi Wernick said.

“The previous model is, come and join the synagogue. You sit down, you fill out your application, you pay. To do that, you have to assume the value of that membership in advance. That’s not what it is anymore.

“The other thing is that they want to be known. They don’t want to be anonymous, and they want to participate in things that are personally relevant to their lives and the way in which they live.”

Rabbi Jarrod Grover of Beth Tikvah, a Conservative synagogue in north Toronto, agrees that the old models aren’t working for young Jews, and he applauded Beth Tzedec for trying something new. But he also has concerns about its strategy.

His skepticism is not whether Beth Tzedec can attract new members, but whether those members will end up being positive contributors in the long run. 

“It’s very easy to claim the model’s a success based on how many people signed up for something free. But I think we all know that’s not how we’re going to judge the success of this. We’re only going to find out in the end how many people pay their dues when they get the bill,” he said. 

That concern is not lost on Rabbi Wernick. He may be excited about the influx of new members, but he understands that only represents the beginning of this process. The ability to connect with its new members, to keep them energized and engaged, will be much more important in the long run.

He points to a number of other metrics and factors that he believes hint at the potential for long-term success. Many events and programs for the under-40 crowd have seen boosts in attendance.

For example, around 100 people attended a family Shabbat dinner in September of last year, while recent ones are attracting upwards of 250. A Shabbat morning service for families with young children has had to introduce two new time slots. Young adult events have been drawing around 100 people on average.

Mauer, who also serves on the family engagement committee, has noticed a similar change.

“People are wanting to get involved, wanting to volunteer, whether that be on a committee, at an event, or some other way,” she said.

“Our problem is that there’s too much interest. How do we create a meaningful experience and allow everybody in who wants to be there? That’s not a problem that a lot of synagogues have these days.”

Rabbi Wernick knows that it is still too early to evaluate the full success of the program. The first real test comes now, when the shul finds out how many under-40 members renew their membership, and especially how many graduating out of the initiative decide to stay on as dues-paying members.

However, he says the effects are already reverberating throughout the building.

“The place is vibrant,” Rabbi Wernick said. “The initiative sparked a more mature element of the congregation to come forward with program ideas. Next year, we’re going to see more programming for people in their mid 40s to late 50s. I just had a call last week from a woman in her late 70s or early 80s who said, ‘Can we do a Shabbat dinner program for seniors?’ There’s a renewed energy in every aspect of the synagogue right now.”

For Rabbi Grover, no current metrics dispel his concerns. He is aware of the Generations Membership’s early indicators of success. But he still doubts this is a sound long-term strategy—and he worries that inviting members who, in his words, do not value membership, can lead to unintended consequences.

“I’m not going to have the metrics on the pitfalls that I’m worried about–one of which is the moral implications of a community that’s conveying the message to an entire generation that they are unaccountable for the debts and the services that they are getting,” he said.

“The idea of sacrifice is really at the heart of this. Sacrifice is a way of building moral character. That’s why Jews believe so strongly in the importance of sacrificing for the things that you believe in. And we’ve now said, ‘you don’t have to sacrifice anything,’ and I worry about the long-term moral consequences of that kind of culture.”

In the Jewish tradition, that sacrifice is grounded in a covenant. It must impose obligations on both parties to contribute to the relationship, Rabbi Grover said.

A covenant does not have to be paid in money. Anything that’s valuable would suffice. For many young people today, who may feel overstressed, overworked, and overburdened, spending a few hundred bucks (perhaps to appease their parents) may be annoying, but no great sacrifice.

What’s more, dues from young people make up a small fraction of the overall revenue of most synagogues. In Beth Tzedec’s case, less than five percent of its dues revenue came from under-40 members, which amounted to around $120,000. So the congregations don’t necessarily need their money either.

“What we need is their time, their energy, their commitment. Will you come to minyan? Will you come on Shabbat? Will you volunteer to lead a shiva?” Rabbi Grover said. 

“There are a thousand things that shuls could do a lot better if they had volunteers to take on the task. If that was the exchange (Beth Tzedec) was giving, ‘we’ll give it to you for free, but this is what we expect of you,’ to me, that would be phenomenal.”

Rabbi Wernick agrees that the relationships between synagogues and their members should be characterized by covenant. However, he believes these institutions need to recognize that the covenant has to be re-established from the ground up.

“I think that the covenant gets established through the building of relationship, and part of what we’re saying with this program is that we understand that… as you experience that value added, as that relationship grows, the covenant will grow with it and everything else will follow.”

Part of the reason the traditional covenant was destabilized, according to Rabbi Wernick, is that the world outside of congregational life has changed so much in the last few decades. As noted by Robert Brym, people today are more assimilated. And society on the whole is becoming increasingly less religious.

“In the past, you assumed people were living meaningful Jewish lives, and the synagogue became a gathering place by which they would share in that together. Now, I think we have to do a lot more work in order to inspire people to live meaningful Jewish lives,” Rabbi Wernick said.

Rabbi Sid Schwarz, the founding rabbi of Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda, Md., and an expert on North American synagogues, also believes the old, transactional model of membership is on the way out. In fact, he goes as far as saying that it has already failed, and the onus is on shuls to recognize that.

“So what’s going to replace it? I use the term covenantal community, which I define as a group of people who share a common vision and mission of creating a community where there’s a sense of mutual obligation both towards the mission of the institution and to the people who are in it,” said Rabbi Schwarz, who writes and consults on North American synagogues and spiritual community.

He agrees with Beth Tzedec’s assessment of the issues and its increased emphasis on engagement and connection but, like Rabbi Grover, he also has concerns about offering membership for free.

“If you are either a synagogue president or a rabbi and you think that by eliminating dues that overnight you’re going to turn the synagogue around, you got another think coming,” he said. “People are looking for a panacea… But if it’s done without the needed prep and homework, you’re essentially courting disaster in terms of fiscal insolvency. And so I really caution people to say, don’t jump into this so quickly.”

However, he believes it’s possible for dues-free operations to survive, and even thrive. It all depends on the ability and willingness to go the extra mile to engage members on a personal level.

Rabbi Schwarz mentioned Beth Chaim Congregation in Danville, Calif., as an example of what that means in practice. Beth Chaim was hit hard by the economic downturn in 2007. One-third of members needed subsidized dues, but many more had to leave entirely.

The environment went from joyous to morose, and the leadership wasn’t sure how to fix it. Eventually, after consulting with the community and conducting research, Beth Chaim decided to waive its membership dues, and put more focus on shared passion and connection.

The announcement immediately led to an influx of new members.

“Rather than coming to Beth Chaim to take advantage of the lack of mandatory dues, they were eager to identify their passions and commit to being engaged in ways that were meaningful to them and to the community,” Dan Goldblatt, the rabbi at Beth Chaim, wrote in a blog post about the transition.

The shul invited its members, new and old, to declare the ways in which community participation would be genuinely meaningful for them. This process resulted in a personal document for each member, which Beth Chaim calls an “Engagement Commitment.” 

“While this has represented an enormous commitment of time on my part it is impossible to overstate the value the meetings have had. I emerge with a better understanding of the interests and needs of my congregants and, in turn, they emerge having had private time with their rabbi and feeling that the congregation is really here to meet their needs,” wrote Rabbi Goldblatt.

For Rabbi Schwarz, the experience of Beth Chaim shows the power of covenantal community. Asking a person for money is easy and impersonal. Asking a person for their very self takes time, energy, and intention. But the extra effort is worth it.

Beth Tzedec is employing a similar strategy of meeting with all new members. They ask about their reason for joining, their Jewish interests, the activities they were hoping for, and more.

However, in part because many more members joined than they expected, conversations have only taken place with about one-third of the cohort. To help expand this outreach, they hired a director of family and young adult engagement, and a family engagement program specialist.

In a few months, Beth Tzedec will have a better idea about the early success of its initiative, depending on how many under-40 members renew—and how many graduating members are willing to pay their dues.

In the meantime, Rabbi Wernick is optimistic that his operation is on the path to building a strong, sustainable covenantal community.

“People have to experience the value of what the synagogue community can do, and what makes a synagogue community different from other communities,” he said. “If you do it well, then people feel welcomed, they feel recognised, they feel connected to other like-minded people, and they find the Judaism that’s being offered to be authentic, uplifting, and joyful.

“It’s through those shared experiences that the covenantal relationship is solidified.”