And the collectors and worshipers, who rely heavily on donations from the "purchase of mitzvot" during the holiday month, are already calculating the synagogue's budget - these donations constitute a major part of its budget for the entire year.
For example, if during the year the donation for aliyah to the Torah is usually less than 50 shekels, during the holidays of Tishrei it can amount to thousands of shekels.
Therefore, on the eve of the holidays, the "Holy Shekel - Connected Community" company publishes the annual donation and payment index in synagogues in Israel, which is based on real data from the "Holy Shekel for Collectors Software.".
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It is important to note that this survey is not intended to indicate differences between denominations and communities, but rather to provide a professional tool for those involved in the field of synagogues, collectors, and administrators of institutions.
Increase in payments, decrease in donations
Let's start, then, with the new data that is being published for the first time this year.
We went out and checked how many times on average does a Miriam Nadav pray at the synagogue during the year (in Hebrew, of course)?
Data from the Holy Shekel indicates that worshipers donate on average 4.8 times a year.
The average payment to the synagogue in 2018 was 209 shekels. A decrease of 41% from the previous survey, when the average payment was 294 shekels.
So what is the most expensive aliyah in 2018?
This year, there was a ten percent increase in the average payment amount, but it appears to have been greatly influenced by the prices of chairs that were included in the index, following the increased use of the "holy shekel" to pay for membership fees and chairs.
In practice, the "per" amounts indicate a downward trend in alms during the time of aliyah to the Torah.
The most expensive aliyah is the opening of the coffin (450 NIS +15%), which is always on sale, and the cheapest is the Levi aliyah (57 NIS -26%).
In between are the Cohen (84 shekels +5%), Third (80 shekels +33%), Fourth (90 shekels -1%), Fifth (87 shekels +9%), Sixth (103 shekels +27%), Seventh (171 shekels +134%) and Mpetir (227 shekels +37%).
""There is a gradual increase in donations," they say in Shekel Hakodesh. "It can be explained that this was created as a result of community members seeing a need to donate and be more involved in the synagogue.".
What is "Holy Shekel - Connected Community"?
''Shekel Hakodesh' automates old processes in the synagogue, serving the collector and members of the community through a variety of means - such as: software for the collector, convenient collection through standing orders, an application for worshipers, a call center and self-service stations, and donations to the synagogue.
The project was born in 2013, and since then hundreds of communities in Israel and around the world have joined it.
Surveys conducted indicate that communities that use the service indicate a sense of partnership among worshippers in the process of making the synagogue accessible, financial savings and an increase in payment ethics, and great efficiency in the work of the collector.
What is the division of the donation according to the prayer text?
Menachem Elias, CEO of Shekel Hakodesh: "In the breakdown by prayer style, we see a new figure when synagogues in the Sephardic style reached the highest average donation of 300 shekels, despite a decrease of 35% from the previous survey. The "Chabad" style, common in Hasidic communities (292 shekels -53%), shows the largest decrease in the number of donations, followed by the "Sephardic" style of the Eastern denominations (180 shekels -27%), closing the list are the "Ashkenazi" style (59 shekels -68%) and the Yemenite style (66 shekels +3%).".
