Welcoming newcomers into the Boston Moishe House community

One of the hardest aspects of community building, in my humble opinion, is how to welcome newcomers. How do you make people new to our community feel comfortable? What are the challenges to accomplishing this?

I know these are questions that Moishe House Boston face, and I, personally, struggle with. On some Friday night dinners, we attract upwards of 80-90 people, many of whom have shown up for the first time. I know, as a housemate, I feel a sense of responsibility to introduce myself to someone who is new, talk to them a bit, make them feel at home--but honestly, it can be hard. Sometimes I don't know what to say to the person. Other times, I feel daunted by the sheer number of people--it can be hard to be "on." And there are times when I want to just catch up with my close friends who I haven't seen all week. What to do?

At Moishe House Boston, we have thought quite a bit about this issue, and one thing we realized was that this was not a "housemate" issue, but a community issue. No one person can or should be responsible for integrating newcomers. Instead, we felt that the ethos of welcoming new people should pervade our entire community. Rather than leaving this as a housemate responsibility, we believed that our community would be a warmer and more inviting place if our community members saw this as part of their job as well. We actively try to promote Moishe House Boston as a community for and by its members--and part of the job of actively involved members who feel invested in their community is to reach out to new people. This "task" not only cultivates a sense of ownership for our members (since the house belongs to them as well), but it makes sense practically: having a whole lotta hands help out is much more efficient and effective than having a few.

So, on a concrete level, we have enacted this vision through several concrete steps. Our "Shabbat and Festivals" organizing team designed a "Newcomers Shabbat" especially for people who had never been involved in Moishe House before or were new to town. During this Shabbat, which was held in September, we had structured programs where we broke people into smaller groups, so that they could talk and get to know each other. Sprawled across our house, people engaged in conversations with someone else they didn't know and were even given prompts to help spur conversations.

On a more frequent basis, we have assigned two people every Friday night to act as "greeters" to all people entering the house. Their job is to directly welcome the person, tell them where to go for services, be a warm smiling face. We also have all the schedule of our Friday night written and easily accessible so that anyone can follow along (i.e., we have a guide explaining the rituals, the pages for the prayers), and we label everything (what types of foods to put where) so that people can be "in the know" as soon as possible. We also have name tags that we use at every event so that people can get to know each other.

A more recent development, our Membership team has begun to actively identify first-timers by inviting everyone who enters the home to sign up, and check a box if they want to be followed up with someone. They are exploring ways to follow with such people (coffee dates with the newcomer, phone calls, "buddies") so that they can continue to feel welcomed into the community.

These are just a few of the ideas we have for how to welcome newcomers to our community. I am sure that as we continue to grow, our ideas will evolve and new challenges will arise. I would love to hear how others grapple with this issue!

Thanks,
Michelle

MH Chicago's Outreach Efforts

We have been surprised by the number of new people that show up to our Shabbat dinners every time. It seems that people hear about them through our email list, and we have gotten many newcomers to our Shabbats that way. Those are the events where we have the most turnout, probably because Friday nights are when young Jews most want to celebrate their faith, but do not have another space to practice. For events that we hold during the week, like happy hours, we get fewer people. We have discussed why that is, and we believe that people are shyer about coming to smaller events and are also busier in the middle of the week. However, we are developing a solid group of repeat attendees—people who came to one event, such as Shabbat, and have come to lots of other events after. We have found that these people are often new to the city or had been actively looking for a Jewish community, so that when we reached out to them, they felt welcomed and excited to come back again.

While our email list, our Facebook events, and other technological forms of communication have brought us new people, we have found that word of mouth is the most powerful tool for getting people to become a part of Moishe House. People have repeatedly told us that a friend told them about the last house, and they decided to check it out. And the people who we draw in come back with friends who in turn come to another event. Our friends from around Chicago, coworkers, and acquaintances make up a big part of all our events, too, which just reinforces to us how our chatting about our positive experience with the Moishe House can lead to new participants. We are going to try in the coming months to mimic some of the other houses’ expansive Facebook groups, but we will continue to rely on good, old-fashioned people-to-people networks that have, so far, produced the best results.

MHSeattle, 6/6/2009: Introducing the new Moisheniks!

As summer comes to Seattle in the form of 80- and even 90-degree days, we at Moishe House mourn the upcoming departure of Joel Rothschild, one of the house's founders and a reliable source of original music, delicious stir fries, and illuminating insights about the day's news. Joel is moving to House Bet, which is a block away from Moishe House and hosts all-ages events under the Ravenna Kibbutz banner. By the end of June, Masha and Neal will be joined by Steven Blum and Nicole Guidry, two wonderful additions to the house and the Moishe House program.

Steven is a writer whose work appears regularly online and in print; he's written for The Stranger, one of Seattle's weekly newspapers, as well as Seattle Metblogs. He has a blog of his own, too, and is knowledgeable and opinionated (in a good way) on subjects cultural and political.

Nicole is an adventurous person who recently skydived and wants to do it again in August, possibly as a Moishe House event. She has boundless energy and tons of ideas for future events, which is great to see in a new member.

We MH "elders" anticipate great things from these promising newbies, and it'll be fun to report on the doings of the "rebooted" Moishe House Seattle during the coming months. Shabbat Shalom!