October 9, 2023 | Announcements
We are proud to announce the launch of our new Temple Har Zion website!
The idea to redesign our website was a need that the clergy, staff, and lay leadership recognized at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic as virtual services, events, and lectures, and digital information became more important to everything we do as a synagogue.
After exploring different avenues to redesign the website, we met with one of our own synagogue members, Jim Bernard, an experienced designer in brand communications. Jim helped us realize what we already knew in the back of our minds – that our current website didn’t reflect Temple Har Zion’s rich and vibrant community, culture, and spirit. His participation in the project was beneficial in presenting a new concept for the website that served as a catalyst to move forward on a redesign.
This has been a long process for us as we discovered just how extensive and comprehensive this type of project becomes when pulling together all the ideas from visual presentation to function to content. It had us digging deep into the vaults of our needs and interests for the synagogue. We wanted to make sure we presented a new digital home for our members and community that felt welcoming, informative, and engaging.
The result is a unique presentation of Temple Har Zion and a foundation for online growth as we continue to build our site as a place where members and non-members alike can find information on Temple Har Zion’s services, activities, education, volunteer opportunities, community, and more.
As with many things in life, it’s hard to tackle big things alone and that was certainly our case with this project. As a small staff, we rely on the support of others to help us continue to improve and grow our efforts at Temple Har Zion. Our new website would not have been possible without the support, dedication, and labor of many people in our synagogue community and partners over several years.
Thank you to the following participants who worked to ensure the website conveys the unique spirit of our beautiful community:
Judith Crown
Barbara L. Yong
Jeff Kirshman
Claudine Guralnick
David Schwartz
Stewart Figa
Judith Grobe Sachs
Sheila Essig
Len Grossman
Jeremy Broekman
Laura Brookes
Michael Zmora
A special thanks to Rabbi Glick who had a vision for a website that reflected Har Zion’s new 21st-century energy and needs, and worked tirelessly through every phase, from all of the concepts, to writing much of the first content draft himself, to personally directing all of the details and people involved on the Har Zion side, to finalizing the project, to ensure the website could be a powerful tool for the synagogue going forward.
With gratitude to Charles Shapera, who gave of his time, energy, and humor to the website over several years, and made many important decisions along the way, especially near finalization, to ensure the logistics and communications would have the far-reaching impact that we hope.
Thanks to our writing team, writer and journalist Jeff Kirshman who grew up in the synagogue, and our volunteer congregation member writer and editor extraordinaire, Judy Crown.
Thank you to our wonderful lay leadership, led by our president Juli Geldner, that has supported the project through its many phases.
We are thankful to Jim Bernard for his brilliant design concept and direction; to Nancy Morris at N2 Studios, our insightful and savvy project manager who pushed our small team forward through thick and thin with clarity, understanding, and a special appreciation for our congregation; and to Informatics’ web development team for comprehending our broad vision and creating its artistic and pragmatic expression in this beautiful new website.
We hope you enjoy our new website and digital home. Please return again and again to browse through our pages, find the information you are looking for, and discover what this website and our community has to offer.
Mazal Tov and thank you to everyone!
The Website Team