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Beth El Seven



VOLUNTEER PROJECTS FOR 2025
WE NEED YOU – to lend your time, talents, ideas, and creativity to accomplish great things for Beth El. The Beth El Seven offers seven exciting and worthwhile projects that we think you will find both rewarding and fun, and will contribute greatly to life at Beth El. Some of these projects can be done at home at your convenience and others involve brainstorming and being part of a task force. Each will be coordinated, but not chaired, by a member of the Board of Trustees. This introduction will briefly describe each of the Beth El Seven initiatives. At the end, we ask you to identify one (or maybe two) of these projects that you would like to work on. So without further ado, here are the Beth El Seven for your consideration:

1. THE CEMETERY PROJECT
We have a great website for our cemetery, just waiting for people to fill in stories, memories, and even photographs of their friends and loved ones. The problem? No one knows about it. Because a cemetery is also a history of our congregation, we want to change that. If you choose the Cemetery Project, you will be part of a team that will email family members in and out of town, asking them for stories, highlights of their lives, photos, and other information. You would then format this and enter it into the website. We will provide you with all the materials, scripts, and other support to make this job as easy as possible.

2. OPERATION MAKHZER (RECYCLE)
A good recycling program can make our Beth El a “greener” place and increase our awareness of the environment. Operation Makhzer will work with staff to design a recycling program at Beth El, and will develop ways to increase recycling at Beth El among congregants and visitors to the building. It will include research on different options, designing and implementing the program, and developing educational materials.

3. SIMCHA SHABBAT
We all need opportunities to celebrate. Simcha Shabbat will honor all birthday and  anniversary celebrants on one Shabbat a month with a cake other special confection at the Kiddush after services. As part of a committee, you will assemble a list of monthly smachot, design an attractive special email notification to honorees, and help staff plan monthly celebrations. In addition to being fun, we hope this will increase the number of people who get in the habit of the Shabbat experience at Beth El.

4. INCREASING SHABBAT AND MINYAN PARTICIPATION
Along with Jewish education, religious services are at the core of Beth El. A synagogue is a community that assembles to share the experience of prayer together. But we need more people to share in this experience. If you choose this project, you will join a task force that will generate creative and innovative ideas to increase participation and engagement in services, and to help implement special programs. The goal of this initiative is to expand attendance participation in Shabbat services and increase awareness in the spirit of Shabbat at Beth El and the ability of services to reach more people.

5. OUTREACH TO UNAFFILIATED
We think there are about 6,500 Jews in Omaha and the three synagogues together have about 1,250 membership units. This means that about 40 to 50% of Jews in Omaha do not belong to a synagogue. We believe that Beth El and Conservative Judaism have a great deal to offer these unaffiliated individuals and households. This very important group will work with staff to development a database of unaffiliated people and create and implement an outreach program to reach these prospective members of our community.

6. OPPORTUNITY GUIDE
We have a wide variety of social groups, committees, clubs, activities, and opportunities for engagement. But people often don’t know what they are or where to start. Today, being engaged is clearly good for our health as individuals and a community. If you join this group, you will help produce a guide to all the things Beth El has to offer, reviewing work that has already been done and developing and distributing an on-line and print guide to how to be involved in synagogue life.

7. INTERGENERATIONAL LEARNING
We want to develop and implement learning opportunities that ( with apologies to Malachi and Crosby, Stills & Nash) help parents teach their children and children teach their parents and for each learn together. If you choose this initiative, you will help design and execute programs in which people of all ages learn together and share their perspectives and experiences – a very exciting prospect for all of us.

Remember that you will receive staff and Board of Trustees support and coordination for each of these enterprises – YOU WILL NOT BE ALONE! We will also provide the materials that you need and will be available to assist. Please use the questionnaire below to choose the one or two projects that you would to be part of. And remember that your time, energy, and creativity will help advance the Spirit of Beth El.
Fri, January 17 2025 17 Tevet 5785