Sha’are Shalom History
by Lee Weinberger
At our first meetings, although many of the original members had a Conservative Judaism background, it was decided that there was no need to affiliate with any specific movement and that we would remain an independent congregation thus appealing to all segments of the Jewish population in Southern Maryland.
For several years we remained independent although our first Rabbi was a Reform Rabbi and we used the Reform movement’s prayer book, “Gates of Prayer,” for our Shabbat services. Thanks to efforts by Rabbi Auerback, the Reform Movement provided us several benefits as an inducement for us to affiliate with their movement. These benefits included loaning us a Torah, providing training to our leaders, and helping us find rabbis and student rabbis to work with our religious school, congregants, and lead services.
Eventually the membership decided we needed to affiliate with one of the recognized Jewish movements in order to truly identify ourselves. The only thing we were certain of was that affiliating with the Orthodox movement would not meet the diverse needs of our membership or the general Jewish population of Southern Maryland. The Board, through the Religious Affairs Committee, studied the precepts of the Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Reform movements and sent a memo in February 1994 to all members presenting their findings. A general membership meeting was scheduled for March 1994 to vote on the question of affiliation.
The membership was asked to vote on two questions. First, will the congregation affiliate with any movement or remain independent? And, if the vote was to affiliate, then which movement would we affiliate with? After much discussion, which centered on how we could best serve the diverse needs of the Jewish population in Southern Maryland, the vote was taken and the decision by an overwhelming majority of the members was to affiliate with the Reform Movement. Thus the wheels were put in motion and in 1995 we formally affiliated with the Reform Movement.
Reminder: Many of the questions at the Baffle Bowl will be based on these historical inputs in the Gatekeeper.