Long Island

The changes did not come overnight. But Maddy Ross, president of the former Wantagh Jewish Center, knew there was nothing anyone could do to stop them. Years ago, during the High Holy Days, the synagogue on Woodbine Avenue needed its social hall, sanctuary and even a tent out back to accommodate the crowds.

Today, much is different. What was once an institution with 500 to 600 families has gradually shrunk to 250.

Six miles away, the Farmingdale Jewish Center had also been suffering. Bob Cooper, Farmingdale's president, had watched as synagogue membership dwindled from almost 400 families in the early 1980s to around 130 today.

"Primarily, we've had a course of financial issues which can be directly traced back to our shrinking demographics and membership ... , Cooper said. "And it came to the point where there was a real threat to the continued existence of our congregation."

On April 15, after months of negotiations, members of both Conservative congregations voted to form a new united synagogue: the Farmingdale Wantagh Jewish Center. And on July 1, the merger became official.

"For the good of the Jewish community on the South Shore," Wantagh Rabbi Al Lavin said, "we saw this as the only way that both synagogues could survive many years in the future."

Across Long Island, particularly along Nassau's South Shore, Conservative and Reform congregations are merging. At least five mergers have been completed in the past two years, and as many as 14 other synagogues are now considering consolidations, say regional leaders of the Conservative and Reform denominations.

These temples, many built in the middle of the last century when Long Island's population was surging to its highest level, are mostly being battered by demographic changes. The .Jewish population is aging -- the number of Jews 75 years and older on Long Island and in the surrounding region rose from 5 percent in 1991 to 11 percent in 2002 -- and many are moving out of the area. At the same time, younger families find it hard to afford Long Island, and even when Jewish families do locate here, they increasingly decline to affiliate with synagogues.

"In comparison with the general census population, the New York Jewish population is disproportionately older," said Jennifer Rosenberg, research director of strategic planning and organizational resources for the UJA .Federation of New York.

Intrafaith demographics are also playing a role in the mergers. From 1991 to 2002, the percentage of Nassau County Jewish respondents who identified themselves as Reform declined from 42 percent to 39 percent while the number of Conservative respondents fell from 40 percent to 35 percent, according to the Jewish Community Study of New York. Meanwhile, the number of respondents identifying themselves as Orthodox in Nassau jumped from 5 percent to 11 percent, along with those who said they were "just Jewish," from 14 percent to 16 percent.

"We've been talking about the need to merge in New York for probably 10 years," said Bruce Greenfield, executive .director of The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism's (USCJ) New York Metro Region, "and now people are finally realizing this is the time to do it."

Local Reform communities are facing similar challenges, said Rabbi Eric Stark, director of the Union for Reform Judaism's (URJ) Greater New York Council. On June 19, two Reform synagogues, The Suburban Temple of Wantagh and Temple Judea of Massapequa, voted to merge. Larry Bloom, president of Suburban, said that his temple is down to 500 families from a high of 800 families earlier in the synagogue's 60-year history. Stark said that six to eight other Reform synagogues on Long Island are now having merger discussions, at various levels of seriousness.

"That's in comparison to Manhattan, Brooklyn and Westchester, where we have one going on," he said, noting the different .demographics in those areas.

The temples find themselves hurt by the exodus of young people from Long Island, whatever their religion. High taxes and high housing costs are blamed. The 2007 Long Island Index poll compiled by the Stony Brook University Center for Survey Research found that 69 percent of Long Island respondents ages 18 to 34 said they were somewhat or very likely to relocate in the next five years to areas with lower housing costs and property taxes.

As a result, when the Farmingdale and Wantagh Jewish centers were deciding which building to retain, they chose Wantagh's -- at least partly because they feared losing young families that were in greater number there.

Other local leaders, like Barry Shorten, president of the South East Nassau Synagogue Enterprise, pointed toward a mid-20th century boom of synagogue construction on Long Island. "There was a systemic problem of overconstruction," he said.

Barry Mael, USCJ's director of regional activities, and Emily Grotta, a spokeswoman for URJ, said they are not overly concerned about the movement toward mergers. "It's just something that we know happens," Grotta said. "Right now, we are seeing a flurry of new congregations in the Pacific Northwest. Similarly, five years ago, there were several new congregations in Florida. What's happening on the Island is really a demographic issue."

Bubbling beneath the surface of demographic change are fundamental issues afflicting both movements. The Conservative movement, at one point the most powerful Jewish movement in the country, began to weaken in the late 1960s and early 1970s, according to Jonathan Sarna, an American Jewish history professor at Brandeis University.

"Centrist religions in general in America declined as American society polarized," Sarna said. "Those in the left and the right grew, and those in the middle declined."

Conservatives began paying closer attention with the release of the National Jewish Population Study of 2000-01. It found that 38 percent of synagogue-affiliated Jewish households belonged to Reform congregations compared to 33 percent who said they belonged to Conservative temples. Conservatives had not realized their numbers were quite so low, Sarna said.

The Reform movement, with the most members nationally and locally, has also had troubles. Reform synagogues have long struggled with being seen and used as no more than "bat and bar mitzvah mills," as Bloom called them. Many families belong to their local temple only until their children's religious education is completed, Bloom said. Synagogue affiliation rates among Reform Jews are also the lowest among the three major denominations, and Rabbi Stark said they are even lower than normal in New York.

"Most of the problems would go away if affiliation rates rose," Stark said. "In many congregations, an increase of 50, 70, 100 families would save them."

Mergers, however, are "not the great panacea," Stark said. When they happen at the right time, with both congregations able to contribute both members and money, they can be successful.

But the consolidations also can come with natural tensions. Historically, the Wantagh Jewish Center has been a more traditional Conservative congregation where women participated in services, but not to the extent that they did at Farmingdale, Rabbi Lavin said. To make the move work, Wantagh agreed to adopt Farmingdale's fully egalitarian practices. Among the major changes is the fact that women will now be counted as part of the quorum needed to conduct a general minyan (a communal prayer). Now, women also will be able to stand on the bimah -- or altar -- and read from the Torah during services.

"We've been going in that direction anyway for a number of years," Lavin said, "but this was the final hurdle."

At least two of the more traditional Wantagh families left the synagogue when the consolidation was announced, Lavin said. The Farmingdale congregation also voted to part ways with its spiritual leader, Rabbi David Harary, who will be paid for the remainder of his three-year contract but will no longer serve his congregants.

Under the Suburban-Temple Judea merger, Bloom said the two synagogues are prepared to lose as many as 100 families though they will keep both rabbis for the first year.

"It takes an enormously skillful rabbi to really keep the members of both congregations together," said Sarna, the Brandeis professor. "Most commonly there is a significant number of congregants who feel disenfranchised. That's part of the complexity of affecting a merger between synagogues."

This complexity, it seems, is something that may await an increasing number of Long Island's Jewish residents.

"Synagogues are businesses," said Stark, explaining the difficulties of keeping the bottom line in mind while still serving the spiritual needs of a community. "They are very special, holy and sacred businesses. But they are businesses."

Copyright 2007 Newsday Inc.