ABSTRACT
Change is the key word in synagogue life today. If congregations are to survive, they must respond to the powerful forces pressing on their organizational boundaries. The traditional Jewish family, for example—two parents, married to each other, with children—is by far the minority family structure in American Jewish life. Today a congregation member is much more likely to be divorced, maybe remarried, maybe a single parent with children. A female congregation member is highly likely to be working outside the home. There is a high probability that a congregation member has moved more than once from his or her birth city and is now living quite removed from a support system of family and childhood friends. It is possible that the congregation member may be in a gay or lesbian couple and may have a child with that partner. The congregation member may be a convert or, even more likely, a non-Jew married to a Jew. Clearly the makeup of the congregational membership is vastly different that it was a few decades ago. Yet many synagogues still create programs that assume the traditional family model.
