Become a Member of Hinenu!
Hinenu: The Baltimore Justice Shtiebl (“Hinenu”) is a spiritual community that celebrates Jewish life through ritual, learning, holidays, song, and prayer. Hinenu offers a home for people of all backgrounds seeking Jewish life to land, feel safe, and be welcomed. Your membership sustains the work of the community and makes us who we are!
Please fill out the form below. If you have registered as a member in a previous year, please click “renew your membership.” If you are a new Hinenu member, click “register as a new member.
Want to pay by check, need help with the form, or have a question? Email info@hinenubaltimore.org.
Interested in Joining or Renewing?
New members:
Click here to initiate registration as a new member of Hinenu! Our Membership Chair will be in touch soon!
Click here to set up your dues payment (please choose “give to membership dues” from the drop down menu!)
Current members:
Click here to update your pledged dues ahead of budget planning
Click here to pay membership dues (please choose “give to membership dues” from the drop down menu!) OR sign into your Breeze profile and make changes to any current payments. Don’t know how to sign into your profile or no longer know your username? Contact Milan Hinenu Info for assistance!
To update any other membership information, please sign into your Breeze profile!
Current Recommended Membership Dues for Individual Adult Members:
(all depending on your financial situation!)
Contributing Share = $1.50-$18 monthly or $18-$216 annually
Building Share = $18-$54 monthly or $216-$648 annually
Maintaining Share* = $54-$90 monthly or $648-$1,080 annually
Sustaining Share** = $90-$300 monthly or $1,080-$3,600 annually
*A maintaining share is the amount that, if every adult member contributed, would allow us to fully meet our budgetary needs.
**A sustaining share is what allows for the carrying forward of our pay-what-you-can model, essential for a shul where the majority of members cannot offer a maintaining share! Contributing at this level helps ensure the sustainability of your community for all members.
Membership FAQs
Who can be a member?
Membership is open to any individual who meets the following criteria:
Contributes to the congregation through individual contributions and
Participation in community life through volunteering and committee service
Is above the age of 12
Children of members are welcome to participate in any and all activities of the community.
Youth members (aged between 12 and 17) are eligible for full membership including voice and a vote in decision-making. Youth member contributions are non-monetary and developed on a case by case basis.
Community members who are also formal members of other synagogues or religious communities are welcome to join Hinenu. Though we are a community grounded in Jewish traditions, our membership is not restricted to Jews, and we welcome all who share our values and want to be in community with us.
What do membership dues pay for?
Membership dues are our largest and most reliable funding source. They are the major way we pay for Hinenu’s costs, which include profession-standard salary and benefits for our full-time Rabbi; competitive wages for our staff; space rental for services, holiday events, and other programming; honoraria for speakers and teachers; funding for donations, sponsorships, and reparations; technology needs and more. As Hinenu has grown, so has our programming and costs, and membership dues are supporting our move from scrappy start-up to establishing a community and presence we hope to sustain for generations to come!
What are the benefits of membership?
Benefits of membership include: pastoral care, chesed requests, reduced fees for certain programs, ability to enroll youth in Beit Hinenu programming, life cycle officiation (including b’nei mitzvah and weddings), attending and voting in membership meetings and electing lay leadership, member-specific mailing list and social media groups, and being a part of supporting and building this sacred community.
One of Hinenu’s guiding values is Kehilah kedosha (Sacred community): we value the contributions of all members equally, and rely on member contributions and leadership to make our community possible. Members give their time, ideas, and funds, and those contributions together allow us to support a pay-what-you-can model that ensures the longevity and availability of Hinenu.
How is the cost of membership dues determined?
Hinenu has a recommended dues structure that allows people to pay what they are able, and participate fully in congregational life regardless of what that amount is. Contributing and Building shares suggest ranges that we hope can meet a large variety of personal/family budgets. A Maintaining share is the amount that, if every adult member contributed, would allow us to fully meet our budgetary needs. And a Sustaining share is what allows for the carrying forward of our pay-what-you-can model, essential for a shul where the majority of members cannot offer a Maintaining share! Contributing at this level helps ensure the sustainability of your community for all members.
Please remember that no interested individual or household will be turned away for lack of funds—our pay-what-you-can model is fundamental to our community’s values. Membership dues make our community possible, and we ask each member to determine an annual contribution that is meaningful, significant, and affordable to you.
We recognize that many people experience poverty and/or short or long term financial instability, and that possession of wealth is no measure of a person's value to our community. Our dedication to financial accessibility means that we will not erect barriers to participation in our community based on monetary contributions.
Some factors to consider when determining your member dues:
While we expect to be able to raise funds from other sources, dues are our largest and most reliable funding source.
Hinenu's suggested dues are comparable to or lower than many local congregations and our peer congregations nationally.
If you are able to contribute at the Maintaining or Sustaining dues level, this helps ensure the sustainability of your community for all members.
There are many non-dues ways to contribute to the community, so please only give what is financially realistic for you!
Member dues and donations to Hinenu are tax-deductible.
How much should I contribute to member dues?
We know that giving a Maintaining or Sustaining share is not possible for everyone, and we ask each member to determine an annual contribution that is meaningful, significant, and affordable to you. If it is helpful, please consider the following guidance with reference to household income for suggested dues contributions:
If you are fortunate enough to be able to do so, please consider going as far towards or above the Sustaining share as you comfortably can; your generosity is integral to the sustainability of our voluntary dues model!
What is the dues cycle?
Bear with us, this gets a little tricky, given the number of years within a year that we observe! Our official dues cycle aligns with the Gregorian year (January-December), because it is the most easily referenceable calendar system and because it lines up with end-of-year giving statements. (All membership dues and contributions to Hinenu are tax deductible!)
In the spring, (around the New Year established with Passover), we will be reaching out to all existing members to submit dues pledges for the next 12 months (April through March), as this will help us in the planning of the budget, which runs from the fiscal year of July-June! See, so many years!
To simplify, we’d encourage as many people as possible to set recurring dues payments, either weekly, monthly, or annually, which you can then update or cancel by signing into your membership profile through Breeze or by asking Hinenu Treasurer to adjust it for you!
Where can I get support on deciding what the right amount is for my household to give?
Get in touch and we’ll schedule a time for you to meet with a leader of our congregation. You can contact congregational president Karen Taylor Hinenu President, who will connect you.
What if I just want to donate, but not join Hinenu right now?
Thank you for your support of Hinenu! If you would like to make a donation in honor of a simcha (joyful event) or in memorial, or to celebrate Hinenu in general, you can do so here, or contact our treasurer, Shana Roth-Gormley Hinenu Treasurer.
To create a strong foundation for this new community, we invite members, friends, and family who are able to contribute seed gifts at $10,800, $5,400, $3,600, or $1,800. So that we can lay a strong foundation we hope donors will consider making a multi-year pledge. We welcome gifts of any amount to help us launch this community - and if you know anyone who’d want to chip in, let us know!