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How one of North America’s largest Conservative congregations added 900 new members in 8 months
This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives.
TORONTO (JTA) — At a time of declining synagogue affiliation rates and following a pandemic slump, one of North America’s largest Conservative congregations gained 900 new members in just eight months.
Launched in July 2022, an initiative called the Generations Membership Program attracted young families to Beth Tzedec Congregation here by removing membership dues for anyone under the age of 40.
The success of the no-dues model surprised leaders of the synagogue, whose next challenge is to strengthen the connections between the new members and the congregation.
“We were all surprised by how much uptake there was,” said Yacov Fruchter, the synagogue’s director of Community Building and Spiritual Engagement, Yacov Fruchter.
With over 4,000 members, Beth Tzedec is one of the largest Conservative congregations in North America. However, over the past decade, Beth Tzedec has suffered from a decline that has affected the Conservative movement, once North American Judaism’s largest denomination. In 1971, 832 congregations identified with the movement, a number which dropped to 562 by 2020. The number of Conservative Jews also dropped from 1.6 million at its peak to a half million by 2020, according to data from the 2020 Pew Research Center survey of U.S. Jews.
The decline of the Conservative movement left Beth Tzedec struggling to attract new members while old families fell out of touch with the congregation. “Ten years ago, our membership was at 2,400 households, but I think that number was inflated,” said Rabbi Steven Wernick, its senior rabbi. “Into the pandemic, we saw membership drop to 1,700-1,800 paying units,” or families. That’s a decline of approximately 25% over the 2010s.
As director of education, Daniel Silverman oversees Beth Tzedec’s congregational school as well as bar/bat mitzvah educational programs. Silverman said that it was difficult to attract and maintain younger congregants due to shifting cultural perspectives and financial stresses that have worsened over recent years.
“It was hard to help people understand that synagogue was worth their time when we put up a relatively high [financial] barrier,” said Silverman. “People of this generation are not going to be inclined to join and pay money to join a synagogue in the way that their parents and grandparents were.”
Beth Tzedec’s membership dues are adjusted for each family unit depending on how much the family can pay. That doesn’t mean that membership is cheap, however. For the highest-earning members of the congregation, dues can be up to $6,000 annually per family.
Ariel Weinberg, 17, belongs to Beth Tzedec and participated in Silverman’s bat mitzvah educational program. When she becomes an adult, she said she would be happy to pay a portion of her salary for synagogue membership but wants her experience to be more than simply attending for the High Holidays.
“That’s a lot of money to put forth every month when I only use it twice per year,” Weinberg said.
Voluntary dues programs like Beth Tzedec’s have been growing in recent years. Synagogues adopting the model cite research showing that potential members see belonging to a synagogue as less of an obligation and instead want to be shown what a synagogue has to offer, as Rabbis Kerry Olitzky and Avi Olitzky argued in their 2015 book on membership models.
Wernick said that the way younger generations view synagogue membership is fundamentally different from previous generations.
“The traditional synagogue membership model was pay first and engage later. So what we decided to do was, engage first, and then we’ll talk about money later,” Wernick said.
Boosting membership on paper is one thing; creating active, engaged members who show up for worship and take part in programming is another. To demonstrate Beth Tzedec’s commitment to engaging the new cohort, the shul recently hired an engagement specialist and the board is also in the process of hiring a new cantor or rabbi. Leadership has also committed to meeting one-on-one for a “coffee date” with each new member of the congregation to strengthen new connections.
“The goal is to make a place as large as Beth Tzedec feel small and personal,” said Silverman.
Leadership’s attempts to better connect with congregants have already resonated well with new members. After Rebbecca Starkman and her family joined Beth Tzedec in September 2022, her husband met with Wernick as part of the “coffee date” initiative.
“He really, really enjoyed it,” said Starkman. “It also made him feel connected, connected and comfortable.”
When Wernick became Beth Tzedec’s chief rabbi in 2019, he set out to address Beth Tzedec’s membership woes. As the former CEO of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the congregational arm of Conservative Judaism, he used his expertise to devise a plan that would reverse the previous trend in Beth Tzedec’s affiliation.
“What I attempted to do at USCJ was to help synagogues reinvent themselves for the 21st century,” Wernick said.
Part of that idea, said Beth Tzedec’s president, Patti Rotman, meant rethinking the congregation’s membership model. “It couldn’t just be transactional. It had to be transformational,” Rotman said.
Prior to the implementation of the Generations program, Beth Tzedec had attempted strategies to improve engagement. Previously, membership for families under the age of 25 was set at only $50 per year. The congregation was able to support this program as membership dues only accounted for 30% of operating income, the rest coming from other sources.
According to Wernick, as of 2022, only 5% of Beth Tzedec’s operating income came from families under 40. As such, the switch to no-fee membership for the under-40 cohort did not cause a significant financial impact.
“So you already had a circumstance where those over 40 were already paying for those under 40,” Wernick said.
In the months prior to the implementation of the Generations Membership Program, Beth Tzedec undertook a significant amount of research into synagogue engagement in Toronto. Based on the 2018 Environics Survey of Jews in Canada, they learned that 70% of Jewish Canadians belonged to a congregation, more than double the percentage in the U.S.
“If there’s 200,000 Jews in the GTA [Greater Toronto Area], then 30% are not affiliated,” said Wernick, “and then if you break it down by how many people are in their 20s and 30s, we’re talking about 16,000 Jews.” Out of the 16,000, Wernick estimates that approximately 30% grew up as part of the Conservative movement, while 30% grew up unaffiliated.
Geographic research told Wernick that prior to July 2022, there were around 500 households in the vicinity of Beth Tzedec in need of a shul.
Rabbi Steven Wernick, senior rabbi of Beth Tzedec in Toronto, previously served as CEO of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. (Courtesy of USCJ)
Beth Tzedec was able to focus its social media campaigns on neighborhoods with the greatest concentration of young and unaffiliated Jews in the vicinity.
“We targeted the unaffiliated, we targeted the previously affiliated to Beth Tzedec, but who had dropped off for more than three years, and we targeted based on geography,” as well as the study by Environics and information from UJA-Federation of Greater Toronto.
Even with the sophisticated marketing campaign, Wernick said that the synagogue expected it would only gain around 20-50 new households per year.
“Just because you give it away for free doesn’t mean that people are going to come,” said Wernick.
By the end of the first day of advertising, 50 new families had signed up.
“We are well over 420 new households,” Wernick said. Seventy-five percent of the uptake are brand-new members while the remainder are former Beth Tzedec members who had fallen out of the fold for more than three years.
The 420 household figure represents mainly families, as well as couples and individuals. Beth Tzedec President, Patti Rotman, estimates that approximately 900 new individual members became part of the synagogue in the eight months since the program was inaugurated.
When it comes to reinvigorating community life, gaining new members is not the only task at hand.
The membership drive “is only mile one of a marathon,” said Silverman.
“The most difficult part is, how do you then keep people connected?” said Fruchter. “You have to have the capacity to develop the relationships that you are starting.”
As self-identified Modern Orthodox Jews, Rebecca Starkman and her family attend synagogue regularly. Because her primary congregation only meets every other week, Starkman had been attending Beth Tzedec for years prior to joining under the Generations program.
“I had been attending loosely since since 2015,” said Starkman. “We had always been members at this other congregation but had not joined Beth Tzedec until this past September.”
Starkman said that it was the financial barrier that had been preventing her and her family from officially joining Beth Tzedec.
“We didn’t feel like we had enough finances to pay membership at two organizations,” said Starkman. “The program definitely gave us the motivation to make the leap to being part of the shul.”
Starkman said that she knows of other families who were also in her situation, attending Beth Tzedec services without becoming official members due to the financial barrier.
“There are three other families who did the same thing we did,” said Starkman. However, one family was over 40 and still could not join the congregation under the program. Nonetheless, for families who are lucky enough to be covered, Starkman said that the program is definitely a motivating factor to join Beth Tzedec.
Weinberg said that the Generations program will also improve diversity within the congregation.
“Our mandate really is to build a stronger Jewish future with youth and young professional engagement as our priority. And to go with that,” said Rotman, “we are also at the forefront of equity and inclusion.”
According to Rotman, Beth Tzedec maintains a vigorous diversity and inclusion committee dedicated to ensuring that the synagogue is an inclusive environment for everyone.
Given the local renaissance that Beth Tzedec has undergone, Rotman stresses the importance of bringing down barriers as the best way for synagogues to engage the current generation of Jews.
“Our goal is to inspire and enable Jews to live meaningful Jewish lives and the best way [to do so] for the under-40 cohort is to remove the barrier to membership,” Rotman said.
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China Signals Increased Support for Iran as US Prepares Potential Strike
An Iranian newspaper with a cover photo of an Iranian missile, in Tehran, Iran, Feb. 19, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
As the United States ramps up its military presence in the Persian Gulf amid rising tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, a symbolic move by China has fueled speculation that Beijing could arm Tehran with cutting-edge stealth aircraft, potentially challenging the US and Israel’s regional dominance.
Last week, a Chinese military attaché in Tehran — a senior official handling defense and military relations — presented Brigadier General Bahman Behmard, commander of the Iranian Air Force, with a scale model of China’s J-20 stealth fighter.
Even though no official contract has been announced, experts interpreted the Chinese gesture as a sharp warning to the US and close ally Israel amid mounting fears of renewed conflict in the Middle East.
If China were to supply fifth-generation jets to Iran, it would not only strengthen Tehran’s deterrence but also break Beijing’s previous stance of neutrality and limited diplomatic support, signaling a direct challenge to US sanctions.
However, it remains unclear whether China actually intends to sell the J-20 to Iran or if presenting its mockup was meant mainly to signal Washington that Beijing is prepared to support Tehran politically, technologically, and otherwise militarily.
While China has publicly urged de-escalation and restraint from both sides in the US-Iran dispute, its latest symbolic move sends a stark signal that Beijing may be prepared to directly challenge US influence in the region.
China’s advanced AI-driven satellites could also give Tehran a strategic advantage by providing the regime with precise intelligence on US military assets in the region, the Eurasian Times reported.
After repeated attempts at nuclear talks between the US and Iran have failed to yield meaningful results, Washington has deployed large numbers of troops and assets to the region in a bid to pressure Tehran back to the negotiating table more willing to make concessions.
With at least a dozen F-22s from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia and F-16s from bases in Italy, Germany, and South Carolina deployed to the Gulf, along with a significant fleet of fighter, surveillance, and intelligence aircraft, the US is marking the fastest military buildup in the region seen over the past month.
According to media reports, F-35 jets from the United Kingdom are also headed to Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan — a recent hub of US air operations — while a dozen US Navy warships are already active in the area.
Meanwhile, the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, entered the Mediterranean Sea on Friday, joining the USS Abraham Lincoln and the attendant ships that form its carrier strike group.
Advanced air defenses and radar systems have also been deployed to the region to help counter a potential Iranian response to any US military action.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Friday he expected to have a draft counterproposal ready within days following nuclear talks with the US this week.
US President Donald Trump said he was considering a limited military strike on Iran but gave no further details.
Asked if he was considering such a strike to pressure Iran into a deal on its nuclear program, Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday, “I guess I can say I am considering” it.
The US president was asked later about Iran at a White House press conference and added, “They better negotiate a fair deal.”
Two US officials told Reuters that American military planning on Iran has reached an advanced stage, with options including targeting individuals as part of an attack and even pursuing leadership change in Tehran.
Amid mounting regional tensions, Washington could launch military strikes as soon as Saturday, CBS News reported.
On Thursday, Trump warned that the Islamist regime must reach a “meaningful deal” in its negotiations with the White House within the next 10-15 days, or “bad things will happen.”
US and Israeli officials have argued that a deal should go beyond Iran’s nuclear program and include limits on its ballistic missiles and a cessation of support for terrorist groups across the Middle East. Iranian officials have said that both issues are firm red lines and that they only seek to strike a deal over the country’s nuclear program, although Tehran has publicly rejected a US demand of forgoing all enrichment of uranium.
In the past, particularly during last June’s 12-day war when the US and Israel struck the Iranian regime’s nuclear facilities, China — despite being a close ally and strategic partner of Iran — remained notably on the sidelines, offering only diplomatic support and statements of condemnation rather than any tactical or material assistance.
A key diplomatic and economic backer of Tehran, China has moved to deepen ties with the regime in recent years, signing a 25-year cooperation agreement, holding joint naval drills, and continuing to purchase Iranian oil despite US sanctions.
China is also the largest importer of Iranian oil, with nearly 90 percent of Iran’s crude and condensate exports going to Beijing.
Last week, the two allies — along with Russia — took part in the Maritime Security Belt 2026 joint naval drills in the Strait of Hormuz, delivering yet another symbolic show of force as regional tensions climb.
According to some media reports, China may be even helping Iran rebuild its decimated air defenses following last year’s 12-day war.
The Iranian regime has reportedly acquired China’s HQ-9B long-range surface-to-air missile systems and YLC-8B radar units, along with thousands of tons of sodium perchlorate, a chemical used to produce fuel for solid-propellant mid-range ballistic missiles.
Iran’s growing ties with China come at a time when Tehran faces mounting economic sanctions from Western powers, while Beijing itself is also under US sanctions.
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Pro-Israel Group Issues Slate of Democratic Endorsements in US Congressional Races
Supporters of Democratic Majority for Israel. Photo: Screenshot
A leading pro-Israel Democratic organization is stepping into a series of competitive US House primaries, aiming to bolster candidates who it says can both defend the US–Israel alliance and help Democrats reclaim the majority in 2026.
The Democratic Majority for Israel’s political action committee, DMFI PAC, on Thursday unveiled its first slate of endorsements this 2026 election cycle, targeting nearly a dozen open-seat and battleground contests across the country. The move underscores how support for Israel remains a defining issue within a party navigating internal divisions over Middle East policy.
Among the most closely watched races are several swing districts seen as pivotal to Democratic hopes of flipping the House from Republican control. In Colorado’s 8th District, state lawmaker Shannon Bird secured the group’s backing. In Pennsylvania, endorsements went to Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti in the 8th District and former television anchor Janelle Stelson in the 10th.
The PAC also threw support behind former Rep. Elaine Luria in Virginia’s 2nd District, a perennial battleground seat, and Texas candidate Johnny Garcia in the 35th District.
In addition to those high-profile contests, the organization endorsed a group of candidates running in open or crowded Democratic primaries, including Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller in Illinois, former Rep. Melissa Bean also in Illinois, Maryland candidate Adrian Boafo, Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss, New York contender Cait Conley, and New Hampshire Democrat Maura Sullivan.
DMFI leaders say the endorsements reflect a dual strategy: reinforcing Democratic support for Israel as a key democratic ally in a volatile region, while elevating candidates viewed as broadly electable in general elections. The group argues that backing Israel’s security and right to defend itself against terrorist threats is consistent with Democratic values and national security priorities.
“These endorsements reflect our belief that supporting Israel and winning elections go hand in hand,” said Kathy Manning, former congresswoman and DMFI PAC board member. “The US–Israel relationship has long been a bipartisan pillar of American foreign policy because it’s critical to our security and intelligence capabilities – and it remains a view shared by the majority of Democratic voters. DMFI PAC is proud to support candidates who reflect those values and who can help strengthen the Democratic caucus in Congress.”
The announcement comes as debates over US policy toward Israel and Gaza continue to animate Democratic primaries. While some progressive lawmakers have pushed for new conditions on US aid and have condemned Israel’s military operations in Gaza, pro-Israel advocates maintain that steadfast support for Israel strengthens both American strategic interests and the party’s standing with moderate and swing voters.
In the two years following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel, the relationship between the Jewish state and the Democratic Party has deteriorated dramatically. Overwhelming numbers of Democrats indicate a negative perception of Israel in polling. Moreover, recent surveys have shown a supermajority of Democrats claim that Israel has committed a “genocide” in Gaza, a narrative that Israel vehemently rejects and of which there is little substantiation.
Further, the cratering support for Israel among Democratic voters has caused many liberal politicians to distance themselves from Israel-aligned organizations such as DMFI and AIPAC, the preeminent pro-Israel lobbying group in the US.
“Winning back the House requires Democrats to nominate candidates who can build broad coalitions and win in November,” said Brian Romick, chair of DMFI PAC. “These endorsements reflect that reality. DMFI PAC is the only organization focused on electing Democrats to the majority while also ensuring pro-Israel Democrats can win in competitive primary and general elections.”
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Dear internet: Having Jews in movies isn’t ‘Zionist propaganda’
There’s a joke in Blazing Saddles, about an event that took place several thousand years ago, that maybe hasn’t aged so well.
It’s in the scene where Harvey Korman’s conniving Attorney General Hedley Lamarr brainstorms plans to clear away the town of Rock Ridge. Lamarr’s lackey Taggart, played by Slim Pickens, makes a modest proposal: “We’ll kill the firstborn male child in every household.”
Lamarr considers the idea, before dismissing it. “Too Jewish,” he says.
When I heard that quip in a recent rewatch with my girlfriend (her first time), I saw a new reason why you couldn’t make the film today: Modern audiences, particularly those amateur critics itching to sound off online, seem to have more fluency in blood libels about Jews than the Passover narrative Mel Brooks and Co. were riffing on. For those who think the Epstein files contain damning proof of elites eating babies, “too Jewish” might seem like an admission. For the many more who look upon Zion as the source of the world’s ills, a misreading of the gag would likely go viral.
True, Blazing Saddles was made in 1974, well before the recent carnage in Gaza. But I could imagine the rejoinders — “Israel has been killing kids since 1948!”
I put the “too Jewish” joke out of mind for a bit. I decided I was overstating just how wrong people on the internet could be. And then I encountered a post on X. It was responding to a screenshot from Marty Supreme, where the title character presents his mother with a chunk of the pyramids. “We built that,” he says.
“This is Zionist propaganda,” an eagle-eyed netizen wrote, to the tune of nearly 96,000 likes, 11,000 reposts and 7 million views. The self-professed “archeology (sic) major” took the occasion to correct this humorous expression of the collosal self-regard of an antihero ping-pong hustler with proof that this particular Wonder of the World was the work of well-respected Egyptian craftsmen and so (somehow) invalidates the Jewish national project.
Someone else said the film, which nowhere mentions Israel, was Zionist. A Letterboxd review is terse in its description: “if the spiritually Israeli term was a movie.”
This failure to grasp Jewish references that have their own ontology — or the desire to graft more recent ones onto them — is becoming a theme.
Last year, The Brutalist, was mired in a debate about whether or not its subplot about the newly formed Jewish state was an endorsement or indictment of national ambitions in the Levant. (In entering this particular fray, most missed the point: Recent survivors of the Holocaust discussed and argued about Israel, some moved there, others didn’t and a film can present this reality without offering a judgment either way.)
When I see these takes, I beat my chest as if performing viddui over the death of media literacy.
As a critic for a Jewish publication, whose remit is to read deeply into even the most tenuous of Jewish subtexts, this pains me. Not because I myself have offended (though perhaps I have), but because I take the work seriously and try my hardest not to impose on art something that just isn’t there. I’m reminded of Freud’s famous remark: “Sometimes a cigar is a phallic metaphor for Jewish domination on stolen Palestinian land.”
Sorry, that wasn’t it at all, was it?
What the terminally online crowd often mean to say when they shout “Zionist propaganda” is “there are Jews in this!” It’s not a great way to interpret art, and it undermines the legitimacy of the argument that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism. But a film need not even have Jews in it for some to claim it’s really about Israel.
My colleagues and I have written about how Dune, Superman, and Zootopia 2 have been seized by the internet as part of the monomyth of Israeli villainy. When people make these connections, they may believe they’re thinking deeply, but they’re really just reaching for the nearest headline or playing to their own biases.
This insistence on Israel as the ultimate Big Bad reminds me of a remark made by Denise Gough, an actor in the Star Wars series Andor (another property said to be about Israel-Palestine, even though the creator Tony Gilroy mentioned numerous historical inspirations, most directly the Wannsee Conference). In an interview, Gough said a fan sent her a Star Wars analogy, which she said she only half understood.
The fan argued that just as the Death Star, a planet-destroying weapon, has an Achilles’ heel in its exhaust port, that when fired at explodes the whole thing, the conflicts of the world have a focal point in Palestine from which the architecture of oppression can be demolished.
“If we can free Palestine,” Gough concluded, “it explodes everything.” “Everything,” here, being unrelated atrocities in Sudan, Congo and Nigeria.
Let’s leave aside the fact that Gough, an actor in a Star Wars property, is somehow unfamiliar with the most iconic scene in the franchise, and what that level of research might connote for her understanding of the dynamics of the Middle East.
What she is really demonstrating, when she mentions other countries rocked by violence, is something much scarier: how the conspiratorial, magical thinking that all wrongs lead back to Israel — and that everything is a metaphor for it — echoes tropes of Jewish control and is ultimately an excuse for an exclusive fixation. Turn off the targeting computer that acknowledges complexity. Use the force, Denise! Get rid of the Zionist entity, every other crisis will sort itself out!
And so, I worry that Jewish stories — or even jokes — will stop being seen outside of a context of Israel’s actions and that metaphors and allegory will lose their elasticity, all looping back to a unified theory of evil Jews. Not for everyone, but for enough people to make a difference.
The Jewish story is textured, complex and anything but unified. Marty Supreme, The Brutalist and Blazing Saddles, each make this case. Those who see only one narrative not only miss the plot, they miss out on what good art does best.
The post Dear internet: Having Jews in movies isn’t ‘Zionist propaganda’ appeared first on The Forward.