So now that we’re off the book and onto the Internet, I’ll go ahead and tip my personal hand: I think Rabbis Olitzky & Olitzky are right in their book New Membership & Financial Alternatives for the American Synagogue: that is to say, I think we should move away from dues and toward donations.  Check out this article about Olitzky & Olitzky’s book.  Dues are donations, anyway.  Pretending they’re somehow required is behind the times.  Guilt doesn’t work anymore: our younger liberal Jews just walk away into the open arms of secular life, of other religions that make them feel better about giving money, or into the very open arms of charismatic ultra-Orthodox movements.  Dues have always been donations.  Let’s just get on with raising donations.

Rabbi Michael Knopf, writing in Haaretz, offers a different perspective.  He agrees that our prevailing dues structure needs an update, but, describing his own synagogue’s process of reconsidering dues, he explains why they broadened the scope of their self-critique rather than making a tactical change in policy.  And Hannah Dreyfus over at The Jewish Week explains why some New York synagogues are deciding to stick with mandatory flat-rate dues.  (Some of those numbers in the article, though, heavens to Betsy.)  Also offering a “yes, but” to reimagined dues is Nina Badzin at Kveller, who writes that “Expensive Dues Aren’t the Only Thing Keeping People Away from Synagogues.”

Rabbi Mark Greenspan at The Rabbinical Assembly offers a perspective very different from my own, although I agree with many of the points he makes along the way.  Rabbi Greenspan argues enthusiastically and eloquently for conceptualizing dues as “a tax” placed on all members, which he compares to the half-shekel of silver every Israelite contributed to the Tabernacle (Exodus 38:26-27).  Rabbi Greenspan’s work is certainly an eloquent endorsement of the “taxation” idea.  But in addition to not being objectively a very good example of what most fundraising professionals would consider to be best practices, Rabbi Greenspan misses the important point that the half-shekel is not a huge amount of money.  As Rabbi Eliezer Posner explains, it amounts to about five dollars in today’s currency.  The half-shekel is therefore not a suitable source text for Rabbi Greenspan’s endorsement of the “taxation” model.  (I don’t know that I’d even oppose assessing every member a $5 flat fee.  That might be a positively good idea.)

Among the many who are reimagining dues without removing them, the Reconstructionist Movement offers a helpful white paper summarizing several creative alternatives, while Houston’s Congregation Beth Israel offers a thorough explanation of “Fair Share” dues.

Finally, I think Synagogue Strategies Group asks exactly the right question about synagogue dues: “Can’t It Be More Personal?”  Yes, it can!  And yes, it has to be.