Newly installed president Larry Rein, right, and executive director Robert Lichtman discuss new marketing strategies for The Partnership for Jewish Learning and Life.
Photo by Robert Wiener
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September 9, 2009
The new president of The Partnership for Jewish Learning and Life aims to apply his professional skills in computer science and marketing management to raising awareness about Jewish education.
Larry Rein says he is preparing for the “next wave” of the Partnership, which coordinates educational activities in the MetroWest region.
“I want everyone in this community to know what the Partnership is about and what they can do to participate,” said the West Orange resident. “My mission is to spread the word.”
As part of a “marketing blitz,” he said, he is planning a series of brief and catchy letters urging educators, synagogue leaders, and people throughout the community “to come spend time with us and understand what we’re all about.”
The first mailing, for Rosh Hashana, focuses on early childhood programs. Others will describe services for the parents of newborns and those who are planning to have children.
The goal is to remind the community of the range of ages and constituencies served by the Partnership, an agency of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ.
“We do so many things for people of so many different ages that we want to make them more digestible,” said the Partnership’s executive director, Robert Lichtman, who joined Rein for an interview at a West Orange bagel shop.
“My belief is that the Partnership is part of the life cycle,” said Rein. “It starts at early childhood, brings the kids through their teens, gets the parents involved, and then, hopefully, the kids will bring their kids back again.”
Lichtman further detailed the life-cycle approach to the agency’s programs, such as the PJ Library, which provides Jewish-content books and CDs to families with young children, and efforts to encourage attendance at Jewish summer camps and day or congregational schools.
The Partnership is putting a special emphasis on adolescents, encouraging young people to continue their Jewish education post-bar/bat mitzva through J-Teen the Jewish Teen Educational Experiences Network of MetroWest, an umbrella for a variety of identity-shaping programs.
The result of taking part in such programs, said Rein, is that the young people “will be ready to go off to college, get married, and start the cycle all over again.”
Rein’s marketing plan focuses on “people who are very involved in the federation, in the education world, in the synagogues, and the foundations as well. We want to get people to be our advocates.”
Rein said he intends to expand the innovations introduced by his predecessor as Partnership president, Ellen Goldner.
“We already have a vision of ‘bringing Jewish learning to life.’ One of our mantras is ‘Teach the child, reach the family’ as a cyclical way to bring the family around to the educational process,” he said.
“The real objective of the Partnership is to get to the unaffiliated or the people who are on the fringe of affiliation but have not gone to the next step. We don’t want to preach to the choir. It’s nice to have the choir there to sing along with us, but our mission is to get the unaffiliated. We know we’ll be successful if we get more people to be involved.”
Rein is himself involved at Ahawas Achim B’nai Jacob and David in West Orange, where he became president five years ago.
He is single and serves as a senior vice president at the Newark-based communications firm IDT.
He has served on the UJC MetroWest board and has been active in its Young Leadership Division. He was a vice chair of the UJA Campaign and vice president of the Jewish Service for the Developmentally Disabled of MetroWest.
Most recently, Rein applied his computer skills to help set up the Jewish Job Network, an on-line service for job seekers in the community created in partnership with the Jewish Vocational Service of MetroWest.
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