With slow business at his motorcycle store, Michael Levin was unsure if he could afford the $200 ticket to services for the High Holidays, which begin Friday after sundown with Rosh Hashana.

Yet, last week, he got tickets to services at Bet Shira Congregation and a year-long membership -- worth up to $2,000 -- for free.

``Nowhere I'd rather be than with my family at the synagogue for the holidays,'' said Levin, 41, of Pinecrest. ``It's tradition . . . you reflect on the year and look forward to what we can do in the one coming up.''

As the economy has taken a toll on families, a handful of South Florida synagogues -- which, unlike churches, rely on annual memberships and fees -- are taking the unprecedented move of advertising free services and even scrapping membership dues altogether.

``We've never done this before,'' said Cantor Mark Kula of Bet Shira, the 664-member Conservative synagogue in Pinecrest where a ``membership marathon'' last week netted 119 of those members. Anybody who showed up during a four-hour window Wednesday got a free one-year membership.

``People were uncomfortable saying `I can't afford it' and may have stayed on the periphery, so we got one step ahead of them and offered the deal ourselves,'' Kula said.

Rosh Hashana is the Jewish New Year, and services that begin Friday night and continue through Sunday include the blowing of the shofar -- a traditional instrument made from a ram's horn -- extended prayer and a focus on repentence.

The High Holidays, which end Sept. 28 with Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, are also when annual synagogue membership -- $250 to $2,000, depending on a person's age and marital status -- begins its cycle. This year, synagogues are banking on keeping the flock by offering enticing deals.

DISCOUNT DEALS

At Family Shul, an Orthodox synagogue in Aventura, Rabbi Moishe Kievman used to charge $180 per seat for High Holiday services. This year, almost a third of the synagogue's 130 members have joined since mid-summer, when Kievman eliminated membership fees and holiday tickets after months of fielding calls from financially distressed Jews. The synagogue now operates strictly on donations, including those from some wealthy and generous members.

``We don't want people not to go to shul because they can't afford it,'' said Kievman, who expects 500 Jews to come for Rosh Hashana.

Many synagogues have long let students and Jews in their 20s into the sanctuary for free and discreetly offered discounted memberships to those who asked, ``but the economy has forced the issue of declining membership'' and accelerated rabbis' fears, said Rabbi Brian Zimmerman, who studies national trends for the Union for Reform Judaism in New York.

Rabbis are spurred to unprecedented action to sustain their communities, Zimmerman said, noting that ``many creative programs are being developed to bring people in.''

At Temple Beth Israel of Plantation, a Conservative congregation, members would usually pay $100 for High Holiday tickets. This year, they are half-price. At another Conservative congregation, Temple Sinai of Hollywood, more than half of its 350 members have paid discounted membership fees.

At Temple Israel in Miami, a Reform congregation, there is no formal program of free memberships, but leaders have seen an increase in requests this year from those who cannot afford to renew their dues.

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