About

Shma Koleinu is a Jewish community in Houston, Texas that exists to serve you along with all other Jews, Jewish families and those who love them with high quality Jewish programming, meaningful spiritual experiences, opportunities for personal growth and a visionary voice.

Our Mission

Shma Koleinu will strive to be:

• a community that recognizes, values, and embraces the multiplicity of strengths that each family and individual can offer; be it creative, programmatic, organizational, professional or financial.
• a community that is committed to serving Jews and Jewish families where they are: educationally, spiritually and socially.
• a community that is dynamic as well as flexible – that does not rely solely on the continuity of the performance of ritual for the purpose of self-identification.
• a community that has the capacity to respond meaningfully and quickly to a member’s personal needs and desires for their Jewish journey.
• a community that understands that success is not measured by numbers but by engagement.
• a community that recognizes that there is a multiplicity of paths to Judaism, God, spirituality and holiness.
• a community that is committed to comforting the troubled, celebrating the light-filled moments of life, and venturing outside of what is familiar, in an ever-expansive effort towards Tikun Olam, the Repair of the World.
• a community that affirms that a meaningful Jewish life in the 21st century requires the willingness to embrace the nature of the very assimilated, acculturated, inter-married and spread out world in which we live.
• a community that is committed to soulful education for all. Inclusive of early childhood through High school learning, B’nai Mitzvah and Confirmation, the Shma Koleinu curriculum would regularly seek to respond to the question, “what kind of Jews are we seeking to create?” and “Who do we want our children to be?”
• a community that asks, “what are the values, orientations, experiences and knowledge that our children will need to become people for whom Judaism is a soulful and meaningful approach to their lives?