Congregation B’nai Amoona has become only the second congregation in the nation to be certified by Rosh Pina, a San Francisco-based group that helps Jewish institutions broaden their efforts at inclusiveness.

“It’s been a great process for our community to highlight the sometimes difficult but important work that the staff on the inclusion committee does to ensure that this is a synagogue where everyone who wants to be here can be here, participate and feel comfortable,” said Jennifer Newfeld, director of congregational learning.

The “Cornerstone” designation by Rosh Pina is the result of a yearlong process in the West County Conservative congregation, which developed goals to improve interaction with those who have special needs. It also isn’t the first recognition the shul has received on the issue. Last year, B’nai Amoona was the first synagogue in the world to be honored with the Ruderman Family Foundation prize for disability inclusiveness.

“Once we received that, we thought, ‘Well, that’s great, what else can we do?’” said Newfeld. “Going through this process reinvigorated our efforts and brought inclusion needs back to the forefront of people’s minds.”

As part of the process with Rosh Pina, the synagogue hired an inclusion coordinator for its religious school and summer camp, added electronic door openers to the sanctuary and initiated special needs professional development for teachers at the school. It also hosted a talk on the concept of “radical inclusion” and acquired a portable ramp for access during off-site events.

“B’nai Amoona has quite a long history of being an inclusive environment and working towards inclusion,” Newfeld said. “A few years ago we went through a huge education process with the community where we lowered our bimah, put ramps in and made it accessible for everybody.”

Larry Opinsky, co-chair of the inclusion committee, said that the congregational commitment to inclusiveness runs deep.

“B’nai Amoona has not, and does not, intend to do a couple of projects and then say ‘OK, we’re inclusive now,’” he said. “That’s not the way inclusion works. Inclusion is a consistent and constant process.

Opinsky, whose daughter Lilly has Rett’s Syndrome, said he felt the drafting of an inclusion statement for B’nai Amoona was an important moment.

“That ended up being a pretty big event for us,” he said. “It took easily two, three, four different meeting sessions over four or five months. We wordsmithed it down to the last period, comma and colon. What it did was enable the current inclusion committee to share each other’s core beliefs on what we thought inclusion was and flesh out a statement that we felt was the true spirit of inclusion was at B’nai Amoona.”

Newfeld said the work isn’t done yet. The congregation has also set future goals, which include discussing the topic of inclusion at least once a year in every committee and hosting a speaker series on the issue.

B’nai Amoona will also create lay leader inclusion advisors. The new positions will help individuals who put on programming at the synagogue to ensure that such events take the needs of all attendees into account.

“Does there need to be special seating for wheelchairs? Is it accessible for someone with hearing issues? Will they have access to proper bathrooms?” Newfeld said. “These are things that if you are not used to thinking through them, you don’t know to think through them.”

Opinsky agrees noting that events can be a challenge in that regard and special needs should be considered beforehand.

“To be fully inclusive means to be proactive and not reactive,” he said.

Opinsky said that B’nai Amoona is working hard to identify both short- and long-term needs. He thinks the certification stands is a sign of the synagogue’s progress.

“Inclusion in the past had been done at B’nai Amoona more situationally, which is very common,” he said. “It was really specific things but not just taking a step back to see what the big picture is.”

Elana Naftalin-Kelman, executive director and founder of Rosh Pina, said that two other institutions are getting close to certification, both of them in California.

During B’nai Amoona’s process, she said, she visited the synagogue twice during which she took note of the commitment of the staff, klei kodesh and membership as well as what she felt was a Hebrew school and preschool on the “cutting edge” of inclusion.

“I have been impressed and inspired by B’nai Amoona’s leadership and clergy not only as one of the first to get our certification but also as a model of what an inclusive (in the Jewish) community can be,” Naftalin-Kelman said.