Dear Shul event organizers...

amother

Mon, Feb 26 2024, 10:01 am

amother Jasmine wrote:

Here it is I found it
https://www.imamother.com/foru.....36494
But I believe my story is worse than yours

Wow yours is worse than mine. Mine wasn't supposed to be public. Most people probably didn't know that it even happened. But it was embarrassing for those of us who found out and weren't invited. Again, so glad I didn't show up.

Thinking about who I saw was invited... it was a lot of the women whose husband's are Rabbis. I feel like it makes it worse to have secret special SS for people whose husband's are in chinuch or the like... the very people who are running the shul, in chinuch, and supposed to be role models... 🙄
These wives often tend to be a clique so it makes it worse. If you are part of the kollel or a chinuch family you huddle together and chit chat but how dare someone whose spouse works try to join the conversation... and no, its not like people are discussing things that chinuch families wouldnt participate or do-good playgrounds, where they went on vacation (Same low key places, it isnt like some do Italy while others get a motel room, we mostly all go to the same level of vacations), recipes, questions about finding an OT or how to manage schedules...
But if someone outside the crowd says something the conversation often stops. It was bad when someone joined the shul as a chinuch/kollel family, we were having a good conversation, I was welcoming her to the shul when someone from the shul interrupted and said (pulling her with her) "let me introduce you to the rest of the kollel wives". And I was left standing there.

amother

Amber

Mon, Feb 26 2024, 10:19 am

OP, the whole thing sounds very painful and exclusive.
I’d like to offer my perspective as a Dan Lkaf Zechus, but if you’re not in the mood for it then skip my post:)
I’m a chinuch/kollel type of person, meaning I am part of that ‘group’. We have had, over time, different functions as a ‘group’, where yes it’s this group only but simply because of what we do. They are to mechazek us, for us to bond, etc. Our husbands (and us) put 120% into the community, and once in a blue moon it’s so nice for us to come together and connect and let our kids play together etc. This happens in many communities.
On the other side- I was once at shul, and noticed people staying after kiddush and waiting around for something. I saw tables being set up, and realized they were waiting for everyone to leave and we’re going to have a meal in shul together. First I felt left out, and then I realized that all of those families had something to do with the running of the shul. Either the Rav/assistant Rav, or board members, administrative…and it made perfect sense to me, and I very much didn’t care and was happy for them to do it.

Both of the above kind of events are invite only. One I was invited to and one I wasn’t. But there was a reason for both. And I would assume there is a reason for what happened in your shul. You have the best scenario- you don’t know who was invited so you have many ways to figure out what could’ve happened, instead of knowing the whole crowd and logically not being able to come up with anything.

amother

Moonstone

Mon, Feb 26 2024, 10:30 am

amother Amber wrote:

Since you’re part of that ‘group’ as you put it, you should know that what you’re doing isn’t right. I’m sure it’s very nice for your exclusive group to get together and have your kids play together. Do it in someone’s house. Get together for dessert after the meal Friday night on one of those long winter Friday nights and let the kids play together. Or if you’re not close enough to walk, make a melave malka or choose a night of Chanuka to get together. Don’t do it at shul. Shul is for everyone. It’s not a place to break up into little exclusive groups.
You sound secure in your social standing and you have your place in society and your ‘group’. A lot of people, for a lot of different reasons, don’t have that luxury. They might really be outsiders, coming from a different place or group, or maybe they just feel like outsiders. You don’t ever want them to be standing watching the tables being set up and then find out they’re excluded.

amother

Gold

Mon, Feb 26 2024, 10:34 am

amother Amber wrote:

I'm not the OP. But I wonder if you even realize how you come across. Super sweet, yes. And also, awfully holier than thou. You are "othering" yourself about how much you put into the community. Like you are the giver and they are the taker. You aren't really creating community. Because a true community recognizes and values all members. Not that you "put in 120%" to the others who need you. You come across as someone who thinks she's better than everyone else. And I think thats the OP's entire point.

amother

Amber

Mon, Feb 26 2024, 10:37 am

amother Moonstone wrote:

Chas V'Shalom!!
We don't 'break out into exclusive little groups'. We socialize with everyone, we don't hang around and talk to each other or anything like that. I was talking specifically about a meal in shul. There are many times the shul has a meal, and many of them are private. Anyone can rent the hall, hire the caterer... I've rarely been invited to one, and it's not a 'big deal' at shul or anything like that. I was trying to give an example of one time when I was invited, one time when I wasn't, both of them invite only because it was for a specific niche.

amother

Amber

Mon, Feb 26 2024, 10:42 am

amother Gold wrote:

Oy. I really didn't mean that. I apologize.
When I said it's to mechazek us, that our husbands give 120%, it was not at the exclusion of others. It was more that this speficifc type needed a specific type of chizzuk. I'll give you another example, and I hope it makes my point sound more clear- I'm a teacher. The teachers in my school get a certain kind of 'chizzuk' as well. Invite only. Think Melave Malka, PTa sponsored dinner at parent teacher conferences that is in a separate room from the parents (although they might see it when walking by), etc.
Do you think chizzuk shiurim /events for kollel wives are wrong?

Anyway, running late, but please leave me your thoughts and I'll respond later IYH.

amother

Hyacinth

Mon, Feb 26 2024, 10:46 am

I've never heard of "kollel/chinuch" as a niche to itself. To me, these are two totally different groups of people. There may be overlap, in that some kollel wives may work as morahs, but many kollel wives I've known over the years are in professions that have nothing to do with children.

In our community, we will occasionally have a speaker specifically for mechanchim or mechanchos. But it would be very odd for an accountant or a nurse practitioner to attend one of those just because her husband is learning in kollel. And same if the kollel did a chizuk event for wives, it would be odd for a school morah whose husband is an accountant to attend.

amother

Hyacinth

Mon, Feb 26 2024, 10:52 am

amother Amber wrote:

I am curious, are you in a very small kiruv community where a single community kollel and a single tiny day school staffed by that kollel's alumni and/or kollel wives are serving a mostly nonfrum population? Because that's the only way that it would sort of make sense to me to smush kollel and chinuch into a single group?

amother

Hyacinth

Mon, Feb 26 2024, 11:24 am

OP - to give you something to be DLKZ about. A shul I know wanted to foster more social interactions between people who didn't already know each other, but in a smaller setting than kiddush. The organizers decided that they would do a bunch of invite-only meals over the course of a few months, with everyone in the shul being invited to one meal by the time the program was complete. The communication was not done up front though, and some people who were not invited to the first one or two meals thought that these were one-off meals for an exclusive cool crowd. Well-intentioned, but imperfectly executed.

amother

Ebony

Mon, Feb 26 2024, 11:30 am

amother Hyacinth wrote:

I don't think there's anything wrong with a kollel doing chizuk events for its wives, or a school or PTA doing chizuk events for their staff.

It would be odd to me for one of the local shuls to do it.

PS, if a shul did an invite-only event for its own staff, I don't think most people would object, nor would it be strange and exclusive.

I wonder if the kollel is the shul in this case. We have that in my husband's kollel, there's no separation. We don't have what OP s describing though. Any events specific to the kollel staff take place on weeknights.

The only time I know ppl feel hurt, and I don't blame them there's just not a good solution without it being even more hurtful to some, is that we can't eat at their houses.

amother

Hyacinth

Mon, Feb 26 2024, 11:36 am

amother Ebony wrote:

The only time I know ppl feel hurt, and I don't blame them there's just not a good solution without it being even more hurtful to some, is that we can't eat at their houses.

I think people are understanding of this when a kollel has a clear, bright line, black and white, enforced policy, such as no eating at non-kollel homes, period. I lived in a city where this was the kollel's official policy, and it seemed to go over well.

But it will be hurtful if there is no policy and kollel members are picking and choosing case by case among community members, based on their perception of how frum someone is.

amother

Moonstone

Mon, Feb 26 2024, 11:58 am

amother Ebony wrote:

If you don’t eat at their houses, you don’t eat anyone’s cooking. Our shul doesn’t allow any homemade food at gatherings. That applies to everyone including the rebbetzin. If you’re visiting friends you can choose whose house you eat at. If you’re doing a function as part of a group you can’t allow some peoples food but not others. That’s the solution.

amother

Mon, Feb 26 2024, 5:12 pm

amother Amber wrote:

Sorry. You are still responding as holier than thou. You are part of each of those groups so don't get how exclusionary this is. What about those of us who give to the community and never even get a thank you?
We all can use chizuk. We all can use a thank you.
I was someone who did a bunch of things for the shul. Never ONCE got a thank you or a public acknowledgement. Never got invited to any sort of special event. But because of me so many things were arranged that no one else knows about. Yeah, I stepped back after only the kollel wives ever got a thank you for anything done. Even if they were paid for doing it. (I was 100% volunteer and even used my own money for it sometimes).

But you are part of the elite "in group" so you wouldn't see this.

mha3484

Mon, Feb 26 2024, 5:34 pm

Maybe I am the odd one out or just from a different background. If there are events I don't get invited to I wouldn't be surprised and I don't think I would care. I have my friends but I am not the most popular or in any elite circles.

I really think its healthy to tell ourselves, not every event has to be for every person. A shul that I go to sometimes has shiurim for women when I am at work. That's okay enjoy. There are plenty of community events that I would love to attend but it just doesn't work for my schedule.

My youngest is preschool aged and my oldest is a teenager, I don't really have a lot in common with the mothers of some of my kids friends who are 25 and their 4 year old is their oldest. I am 15 years older then them and my 4 year old is no where near my oldest. I like socializing in mixed groups but I do also really like socializing with women more in my age and life stage and if a shul made events for those with toddlers and different events for those of us older I actually think that's really nice. There is a time and a place for both kinds of socializing.

amother

Indigo

Mon, Feb 26 2024, 5:48 pm

amother Moonstone wrote:

I don’t agree. In my community they’ve put together events for those working- to “strengthen oneself in the workplace,” learn on national holidays, to which those in chinuch were clearly not invited.
Not a big deal.
It’s important in fact, and acts as a support.

amother

Moonstone

Mon, Feb 26 2024, 6:00 pm

amother Indigo wrote:

We’re obviously talking about two different things. There are events like that in my community too. They usually involve lectures or shiurim and basic refreshments. They’re not sit down meals with families getting together and kids playing which is what op described. There aren’t any kids and it’s organized, as you wrote, as a support. If OP’s shul has a lot of people in education and they organized a round table discussion on teaching methods, I’m sure she wouldn’t have started a thread about that.

amother

Amber

Mon, Feb 26 2024, 6:12 pm

amother OP wrote:

The mere fact that I (or my husband) has a specific role in the community is bad?
I never said anything about lack of acknowledgement of others, you added that. Why is it bad to have micro sects within a larger one? The fact that everyone needs Chizzuk should mean that kollel people shouldn’t get Chizzuk specific for that?

amother

Pink

Mon, Feb 26 2024, 7:16 pm

amother OP wrote:

The way the shul does programming, a flyer goes out stating who it is for. Only those who qualify go. (Eg: Gender, age, siyum for daf yomi participants, only if you pay...). I have zero problem with this system. Makes sense- not everything is meant for everyone. Teen boys have a learning program. Avos Ubanim have their program. There have been kids activities for certain ages. There are women's learning groups too.

Here it was secret. No flyer. Special invites went out to certain people. The shul funded it. Paid for childcare. No one uninvited was supposed to know. But someone on Shabbos assumed I got an invite and asked if I was going. Told me how great it was going to be, that there was childcare etc. I responded that I didnt see it in the flyer and didnt know about it, can you pass me the flyer so I can see?

Then someone else there said "yeah, it's not for everyone..."

Am I clear?

Not sure how they can use community funds this way. Are you comfortable brining this up with the rav/ rebbitzen or someone?