In June 2013, we conducted a survey of the congregation so that the Transition Committee and Board of Trustees could factor congregants’ perspectives into the selection of our next Senior Rabbi. We were gratified to receive over 1,100 individual survey responses, which represented a meaningful and representative cross-section of our community. The following demographic information highlights the diversity of the respondents:

• Duration of membership: 26% of respondents had been members for less than 5 years, 37% for 6–15 years, and 37% for more than 16 years.
• Level of involvement: 45% of respondents said they were occasionally involved, 17% often involved, 9% very involved, and 29% not particularly involved.
• Attendance at services: 39% of respondents attended 5–11 services annually, 17% 12–19 services, 16% more than 20 services, 20% fewer than five services, and 9% on the High Holy Days only.

The survey results have given us profoundly valuable insights into our congregation’s feelings about our next Senior Rabbi and, more broadly, our synagogue. Importantly, we are able to dissect the results to understand how different cohorts within our congregation view the issues. For simplicity’s sake, however, the feedback that follows represents the overall response of the congregation.

We asked congregants to identify the importance of various roles of a Senior Rabbi, and as you can see from this chart, many of the roles resonated strongly. When asked to prioritize just three of these, the top two were clearly Spiritual Leader and Pastor, with the others balancing out in terms of a third choice.

We also asked congregants to opine on the most important qualities of the next Senior Rabbi.

Here again, this chart demonstrates that congregants would like our Senior Rabbi to possess numerous qualities. When we asked the respondents to prioritize the three most important, two qualities received the clear majority of preferences—namely Shows warmth and charisma, is authentic; and Inspires us.

The survey also asked congregants what they consider to be Central’s top strengths as well as areas for improvement. Congregants identified worship services, clergy leadership, warmth of community, and inclusive atmosphere as Central’s top strengths. When it came to areas for improvement, congregants identified our sense of cohesiveness, organized social activities, adult education, and religious school/family programming. Interestingly, 78% of congregants cited worship services as a strength, which demonstrates real consensus. There was less consensus with respect to areas for improvement; for example, the top vote-getter—sense of cohesiveness—was cited by only 24% of respondents.