Organising Modern Synagogues: A Case of Multiple Models

Abstract

Synagogues are organisations. For those who associate the word 'organisation' with business, industry or public bureaucracies this statement may be shocking. Nevertheless, when we move beyond the private world in which individuals and small groups of family and friends work together totally informally, we enter the world of organised activity (Hillis, 1989). This world includes synagogues. There are many different kinds of organisation. What kind of organisation is a synagogue? In this paper, I will outline a tentative framework for starting to answer this question, drawing primarily on my current research into the running of religious institutions. The paper starts from a key observation; that when people participate in organised activity, they seem to use organisational models' to orientate themselves. These models not only help them to make sense of what is happening around them, they are also a short-hand expression of their ideas about what ought to he happening. So an individual's model of an organisation may include ideas about, for example, organisational structure, organisational relationships, organisational functions, organisational systems, goals, decision-making processes, leadership style and appropriate personal behaviour. Models may be drawn from 'official' statements such as those found in constitutions, handbooks, sacred texts or organisational charts.2 Additionally, or alternatively, people may draw on their experiences of one organisation to develop a model of a second organisation. In the case of modern synagogues, there appear to be several such official statements and organisational sources. I shall examine some of them and suggest that their very multiplicity may account for problems and issues that arise in running synagogues.