Regional Activities


Upcoming Events

Tuesday, November 12, 2024
MAR HOST CAMP RAMAH DINNER
Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El, Wynnewood, PA

Sunday, December 15, 2024
MAR MAN OF THE YEAR / YOUTH OF THE YEAR AWARDS
Adath Israel, Merion, PA
Each year, member Men's Clubs honor those whose work, dedication, and achievements set an example for others to follow. The "Youth of the Year" is presented to young members of two congregations who exhibit qualities and achievements that point them toward future leadership positions in the community

Sunday, February 9, 2025
WORLD WIDE WRAP
Held at indivudual congregation live or on Zoom
This is an annual program for Jewish men and women around the world to learn or re-learn how to put on Tefillin. Many synagogues include their pre-Bar Mitzvah children and their parents as part of the curriculum. Be sure you register your club's Wrap on the FJMC website – a requirement to earn a Quality Club Award.

Wednesday, April 23, 2025 (Sundown)
YOM HASHOAH BEGINS
Light Yellow Shoah Candle at Sundown
to memorialize Jewish Holocaust victims

FJMC INTERNATIONAL & MAR REGIONAL INITIATIVES
   
FJMC Biennial International Convention

Going to Convention is the #1 best thing you can do for your club. Packed with learning, camaraderie, leadership training it is the very best of FJMC and proves that Men's Club doesn't end at your synagogue's driveway entrance. From exciting keynote speakers to strategies to make you, your club and your region better than ever, you'll learn about new initiatives, enjoy inspiring services (really!), make new lifelong friends and have a great time! There are pre-convention activities and additional programming for spouses.

Next FJMC Convention is July 3-5, 2025 in Chicago with pre-convention activities a few days before. Mark Your Calendar Now!
MAR Hersh Muchnick Leadership Development Institute
MAR-FJMC is committed to providing a significant number of leadership training seminars each year on membership, motivation, fundraising, programming. Also available is a Club Officers Manual that provides guidelines for building and maintaining a successful Men’s Club.
World Wide Wrap

Each year on the morning of the Super Bowl, FJMC promotes a special morning minyan at synagogues around the world where the mitzvah of tefillin is explained and demonstrated. This world-wide event is a fixture in synagogues throughout North America and in Australia, India, Europe, and South America.

FJMC produced a highly acclaimed video entitled, “The Ties That Bind”, which explains the traditions behind, and the use of, tefillin, and published “A Tefillin Spiritual Primer”, a pamphlet giving the prayers over the tefillin.
Shoah Yellow Candles
Men’s Clubs distribute these specially crafted candles to synagogue members to light on Erev Yom HaShoah to remember those who perished during the Holocaust. Typically, clubs request contributions to defray the cost of the program and to support Holocaust-related ventures. Youth from synagogues using the candles may apply for FJMC scholarships in the United Synagogue “Darkness Into Light” program for Eastern Europe travel.
Hearing Men's Voices
This book series focuses on various men’s issues, with each book providing discussion topics for group sessions and providing information on establishing a local program. The books include: “Listening to God’s Voice” (men’s spiritual lives); “Body and Spirit” (men’s health issues); “Our Fathers/ Ourselves” (men’s roles in the Jewish family); and “Work and Worth” (work in men’s lives).
Shomrei Ha'Aretz - Stewards of the Land
The Leadership Council of the Conservative Movement has adopted this FJMC environmental program as its own. It includes the development of soy Shabbat candles (either tea candles in small tins or larger votive candles); plates and utensils made of soy, which are used in congregations across the continent; the development of a solar Ner Tamid; and a partnership with the Jewish National Fund that involves carbon offsets and eco-projects in our communities and in Israel.
Men's Club Shabbat

Men’s Club Shabbat is an opportunity for Men's Club members to lead the Shabbat service(s). Engage your members as leaders.  Expand their comfort level by asking men to do something they have not done before - like reading Torah or leading a Hebrew reading.

For some, Men's Club Shabbat is Friday night services; for others it’s Saturday morning, and in still others it's both. There are also clubs that expand their Men's Club Shabbat observance to include a program on Sunday morning and others make an entire Men's Club Week.  Grow Your Club: Embrace Shabbat!  
Affinity Groups & Webinars
When everything shut down during Covid, FJMC found a way to bring people together and make community through a number of affinity groups and topical webinars. Today, they are still going strong. Current groups include Cooking, Financial Insights, Genealogy, Israeli & Jewish Music, Photography, Pride & Prejudice, Shomrei Ha'Aretz (Stewards of the Land), Sports, Torah Talks, Yiddish Lite and Yiddish Alive! (advanced).
Imagine Life Initiative

Imagine Life is where mental health issues can be discussed openly. Where we can learn and discuss mental health stigma and can remove the stigma associated with mental health issues. Imagine Life is where everyone can be included.
Inclusion Initiative

The FJMC and Women’s League for Conservative Judaism (WLCJ) Inclusion Initiative works to expand the culture of our synagogues to create an environment that makes all of us, no matter our unique identities and needs, feel welcomed and embraced. Our initial focus is on, Single & Non-Traditional Families, LGBTQIA+, Jews of Color, Physical & Neuro Challenged members of the Jewish Community.
Hebrew Literacy
This program assists laymen to teach other laymen how to read Hebrew. Shalom Aleichem teaches the Friday night service, and Ayn Keloheynu teaches parts of the Saturday morning service.
Yad Shel Chai
This program, first developed by a Men’s Club in Jacksonville, Florida, recognizes youth in the congregation who have read from the Torah 18 times since their Bar or Bat Mitzvah.
Over the past 20 years, FJMC has woven itself into the fabric of Conservative Movement life through a variety of activities and publications which help to enhance Judaism in our homes and synagogues.
Enhancing Jewish Observance
  FJMC has developed several programs to enhance Jewish observance in the home and in the synagogue, including easy-to-follow instructions on “Understanding Havdalah” and “Understanding Ma’ariv”; a booklet entitled “Your Home is Your Sanctuary” regarding the use of a mezuzah on the doorposts of our homes; a video on the choreography of the Torah service; and a Pidyon HaBen kit on the ritual of redeeming the first-born son.
FJMC Haftorah Scroll
  FJMC commissioned a scroll of every haftorah read during the year and allows clubs and individuals to purchase individual ones. Outwardly, it looks like a Torah scroll, but when opened, it includes personal dedications plus vowels and the trop.

FJMC – A Grass Roots Organization
With a New York office of only one employee, FJMC develops all its programs through a cadre of dedicated volunteers. We are a grass roots organization with much of our work being done at the local level. Individual Men’s Clubs and Brotherhoods offer a variety of activities, including father-child activities; programs to enhance Jewish observance; speaker breakfasts; Men’s Club Shabbat; ushering at services; sports activities; and fund raisers. Our clubs are major forces in the activities of our synagogues.

Men’s Clubs are grouped geographically into 15 egions with each region having its own programs and initiatives. When all of the component parts are joined together, FJMC is an outstanding and meaningful organization of which to be a part. Every congregation and Jewish community should have a Men’s Club presence to involve Jewish men in Jewish life and to work toward a more vibrant Conservative/Masorti Movement.