Focus Groups for the New HUC-JIR Center for Worship and Synagogue Renewal

Rabbis Larry Hoffman and Sonja Pilz will be joining us at the ACC-GTM Convention to discuss plans for an endowed Center for Worship and Synagogue Renewal at HUC-JIR in New York. The Center will maximize the impact of the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music and have important implications for congregational cantors everywhere. Larry and Sonja want to tell you about the plans and elicit your suggestions for making the proposed center maximally helpful to cantors in the field.

In short, this would be the first such center in the Jewish world, and would build on what the New York campus of HUC does best: Jewish music, liturgy and worship. A planning team is in place thinking it through. Several members of the ACC are on the team, including Dan Singer, who officially represents the ACC.

"It is critical," Larry says, "that HUC take the planning into the field to ask its constituents how we can plan this so that it proves helpful to them once it is established."

Toward that end, Larry will introduce the Center in a short summary talk on Monday evening at Ma'ariv. On Tuesday, he and Sonja invite you to sign up for short focus groups designed to provide your input regarding ways in which the Center can best enhance the work you are doing.

Please sign up for one of the four groups here.