Including interfaith families and others who had felt excluded from the organized Jewish community was an important value here from the start. The founders wanted to create a congregation in which leadership was fluid, where no one was shut out of contributing their ideas and their elbow grease. Finally, innovation, a new song, was an important part of our ethos. Change has been a constant at Shir Hadash. Our membership includes people who had been alienated from the Jewish community for a part of their lives, as well as seekers of religious meaning who want to grow as adults in their own Judaism.
Tonight is a night of celebration.
There is much of which we can be proud, and much for which we should be thankful. We are now a congregation of about 540 families, with a strong tradition of volunteerism and outreach, and a facility and administration that can help us reach our goals. We are not a stagnant congregation, but one which continually grows, not only in numbers, but in our religious life and in our service to the greater community in which we live. I also believe that I have now a sense of our particular mission. Our new members reflect the demographics of the valley, but also a degree of success in reaching out to the unaffiliated and helping them to see a place for themselves within the Jewish community.