Jewish Groups Pay to relocate

[Deleted]

To Revive Communities in U.S., Jewish Groups Try Relocation Bonuses

Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Young Israel of Pelham Parkway Jewish Center in the Bronx offered Yakira Soloveichik and her family $625 a month in rent help when they arrived from Chicago. “Money is a great way to pull people in,” she said.
By WINNIE HU
Published: September 18, 2012
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When the Soloveichiks moved to New York City in June, they passed over neighborhoods overflowing with kosher restaurants and yeshivas to settle in a barren stretch of the Bronx with a dwindling Orthodox Jewish population.
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Richard Perry/The New York Times
Young Israel of Pelham Parkway Jewish Center is offering a housing subsidy of $40,000 toward a down payment of a home or up to $7,500 a year in rent to attract new Orthodox families.
The incentive?

A synagogue in Pelham Parkway offered to pay them $625 a month — for a total of $22,500 over three years — just to live and worship among its members. The money helps cover the family’s $1,750 monthly rent; if they had chosen to buy, they would have received a lump sum of $40,000.

“Pelham Parkway is most certainly not on the map,” said Yakira Soloveichik, 38, a nurse, who relocated from Chicago with her husband and four young children. “You have to make it worth coming here. Money is a great way to pull people in.”

If religion is good for the soul, keeping Sabbath has never been better for the bottom line.

Many synagogues and other Jewish groups have dangled lucrative incentives in recent years to attract new members to their graying or shrinking communities around the nation. Advertised in Jewish publications or through word of mouth, relocation bonuses have included partial down payments on homes, discounted yeshiva tuition, repayment of student loans and even free memberships to the Jewish dating Web site JDate.

While Israel has long showered tax breaks and perks on those returning to the homeland, Jews no longer have to go anywhere near the Dead Sea to reap financial rewards. In Dothan, Ala., a $1 million “family relocation project,” offering packages of up to $50,000, has drawn more than 500 applicants. In Meridian, Miss., a Reform synagogue has $25,000 grants for families who stay at least five years.

Such incentives have even spread to traditional Jewish strongholds on Long Island long viewed as desirable in their own right. At Young Israel of Plainview, newlyweds and young families can net $25,000 interest-free loans and free or discounted synagogue membership.

Stephen Savitsky, chairman of the board of the Orthodox Union, an organization representing synagogues, called such enticements a “proven model” for attracting new members that has become more common and more generous over the past decade. “Today, if you don’t have a financial program in the greater New York area, then you’re probably at a competitive disadvantage,” he said.

But some scholars and synagogue members have questioned if these kinds of efforts — once associated more with dying towns — send the right message.

“I feel much more comfortable in us being able to show the inherent value of living a Jewish life than using financial incentives to draw people in,” said David Bryfman, director of a Jewish education program in New York. “Intrinsic motivation will be far more enduring than external incentives.”

Certainly, some families have shopped around and tried to negotiate better terms. In Plainview, for instance, one man asked why he should take a loan when he could go elsewhere for an outright grant.

At the Soloveichiks’ new synagogue, Young Israel of Pelham Parkway Jewish Center, Rabbi Shmuel Zuckerman said some people initially balked at offering incentives, saying a synagogue should not have to pay for members. “My response is that may be the case, but it takes some sweetening of the deal,” he said.

Rabbi Zuckerman and others said that the money was simply a way to get people’s attention and help those who could not afford to move on their own, but that it was the community that won them over. The money typically comes with many strings: an extensive vetting and interview process, payments spread out over years and a contract requiring that the money be paid back if a family is not active in a synagogue or moves away too soon.

“We’re not writing a blank check to buy Jewish families,” said Robert Goldsmith, executive director of the Blumberg Family Jewish Community Services of Dothan, which is overseeing the Dothan project. “We’re building Jewish community for the long term, so it’s all about fit.”

Mr. Goldsmith said five of the six families who had accepted money to move to Dothan since 2008 remained; one left after the father lost his job. Karen Nanning, who arrived in July with her husband, said they asked for, and received, $22,000 to relocate from Augusta, Ga. “It wasn’t about the money,” Ms. Nanning said. “The money was just to cover the expenses we incurred.”

Some communities have even reduced their cash awards, relying more on social and cultural benefits as more families have moved in. The Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans cut its cash incentive to $1,800 from up to $6,000, but the program, which started in 2007 after Hurricane Katrina, still receives more than 50 inquiries a month, said Michael Weil, the executive director. About 2,000 people have taken the incentives, which include free JDate, job networking and newcomer parties.

Similarly, a New Jersey synagogue that embarked last year on a second housing incentive program, after a successful 2007 effort, reduced its top award to $20,000 from $36,000 partly because of a decision not to make the amount so high that it would be the deciding factor, said Ben Hoffer, a vice president of Congregation Israel of Springfield.

continued

www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/nyregion/jewish-groups-across-us-paying-families-to-relocate.html

[summer]

My family members should convert.

[marie427]

Um, Pelham Parkway is not barren. That's where this article lost me.

[summer]

Sept 19, 2012 6:39:28 GMT -5 marie427 said:

Um, Pelham Parkway is not barren. That's where this article lost me.

There is a parallel to be made here then,...*whistles and walks out*

[Deleted]

I think if Muslims did this in America people would be irate.

I don't really have an issue with any religion doing this if they are using their ownmoney. What bugs me is the tax-free status they have.

[ringstrue]

It must be profitable to the the community in the end to do this. Do these families have awesome jobs/businesses and give to their temples out the wazoo? Do they have large families who will most likely follow them if they move? Do they all have only daughters and are moving to a town full of sons?

[eport]

Sept 19, 2012 6:47:14 GMT -5 pennypenny said:

Sept 19, 2012 6:30:57 GMT -5 summer said:

My family members should convert.

And I only read what was posted, but I think if the Catholic church or the black church were doing this there would be outrage. Maybe I'm wrong.

quote]

Actually, I know of a Catholic church that did something similar. They were trying to attract younger families to a certain area of the city and if you moved, bought a house and stayed for x years (and stay involved with the church-unwritten rule) you got $$$ to put towards your mortgage. I don't remember how many people actually took them up on it.

[Deleted]

You would have to pay me to join an Orthodox temple as well.

[ttt]

Sept 19, 2012 10:10:32 GMT -5 @iheartcosmos said:

You would have to pay me to join an Orthodox temple as well.

lol

As long as it's their own money, I don't have a problem with this.