Hinda Miller FMAMS Director Rochester, NY	Rochester, NY

What is now Rochester, New York was the home of Seneca Indians who migrated there about 700 years ago from the Ohio River valley. By the late eighteenth century, Europeans, mostly English, began to settle in the area probably because of its geography: for trading purposes it was useful to locate where the Genesee River intersects with Lake Ontario. The city was named for Col. Nathaniel Rochester who, in the early 1800's, purchased land on the west side of the Genesee and encouraged commerce which became one of the prime reasons that the Erie Canal extended to Rochester by 1823.

The Canal made Rochester a city. The small community literally exploded onto the American scene. Huge quantities of grain were milled and the flour was shipped out on the Canal. Rochester became the largest flour producing city in the world. By the time of the Civil War Rochester was larger than Chicago, Detroit or Cleveland.

Rochester became a major stop on the underground railroad, assisting runaway slaves, and was home to abolitionist Frederick Douglass and women's rights leader Susan B. Anthony. This is where the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormon), Western Union, Bausch and Lomb Company, Eastman Kodak Company, and the Xerox Corporation were founded.

Jews have been part of Rochester's landscape for a long time. In 1848 the first synagogue, Temple B'rith Kodesh, was established. According to the latest demographic study (2000), there are about 22,000 Jews in the Rochester metropolitan area, the third largest Jewish population in New York State behind New York City and Buffalo. Unfortunately, the intermarriage rate in Rochester is well above average compared to other Jewish communities and most of the children of these marriages are being lost to other religions.

An adult education sub-committee of the Jewish Community Federation spent two years studying various adult education programs before deciding to bring the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School to Rochester under Federation sponsorship. There was no other intensive, text-based study program available and it was hoped people who experienced Melton would become lifelong Jewish learners. The Mini-School opened in the fall of 2000. Teachers at the mini-school are a Hillel Rabbi, the head of an Orthodox Jewish girl's high school, the head of a Jewish Education Services at the Federation, an Orthodox Israeli businessman, and a college history professor.

"The Melton mini-school has helped to put additional focus on the importance of life-long Jewish learning," says Larry Fine, Executive Director of the Jewish Community Federation of Greater Rochester. "The participants and graduates have not only become advocates for Jewish study, but in many cases have become more involved as volunteers, donors and even as teachers themselves."

"I enrolled as a student in the first Melton class offered in Rochester," says Hinda Miller, the Rochester Mini-School Director. "After being a director of a child advocacy organization, my plan for my next "career" was going to be somehow connected to Judaism probably at my synagogue." When Hinda found out that the founding director was moving to Florida, she jumped at the chance to apply for the job. "I love Melton and I knew, because what it had meant to me, what it could mean to others in the Rochester Jewish community," says Hinda. " I wanted the task, really the JOY, of bringing it to them!"

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