Next Dor Update: Synangogue 3000 Meeting

Monday and Tuesday, representatives of Next Dor will be hosted by Synagogue 3000 in Westchester NY. The retreat will bring together all five recipients of the Synagogue 3000 grant to talk about our plans and learn about each other as well as the program. The pre-work included some pretty interesting articles, which I've included below.

The retreat comes at a great time, considering that construction is well on its way. What will be interesting to see is how the other projects selected will be making use of their grant money.

To see where Synagogue 3000 is coming from, in terms of the research they are using to guide their program, check that out here here and here

We'll do our best to report back to you about what was said and how other cities are handling some of the issues we've talked about.

Shabbat Shalom
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Next Dor Board Meeting Update

Last night the board of CRC unanimously approved use of the house for the Next Dor project.

This marks a huge step in the process. Michael Staenberg committed to raising the money necessary to rehab the building and challenged the young adults in attendance to 'put some skin in the game' by also raising some money.

Some of the questions that came up included how the organization will function, how it will interact with CRC, how it will reach out to new people, and what an ideal line up for a week of events might look like, and how we plan on managing security.

It's time for you to weigh in. How should Next Dor move forward? What ideas or operational considerations should be brought into the mix?

Big things are happening and you can be a part of them.
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Next Dor Next Steps

It's Going Down. Tonight, one of the major steps in the Next Dor project to create a non-denominational, post-college Jewish space in the city will be taken.

At 7:30 tonight at CRC, the board will make a determination as to whether to rehabilitate the house next door into a center for Jewish life.

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Next Dor: Coming To A Neighborhood Near You

When we first started putting together the Next Dor Proposal, we weren't really sure what kind of legs it would have. I mean, its a great idea, right...have a central space where Jewish young adults can get together, and build a community. In the model of For Us By Us.

Lately, though, things have picked up. A large Synagogue 3000 grant came through, a local developer is getting involved to cover a large portion of the costs, and we have figured out who might want to be the live-in caretaker/administrator for the house.

There are some big things we have left to do. The first, is obviously to raise the remainder of the money (a not insignificant task). What will determine our success in this crucial piece is helping the community to understand that this is a community-wide effort. In other words, this space will not be affiliate with a particular congregation, or movement for that matter.

One of the other large issues is understanding the relationship between access and security. How can we ensure that students who want a place to study can come and go as they please, while making the house safe?

This is a community project, so we want to open this up to the community. How should these issues be tackled?
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