The Jewish communal apparatus has long been warning of or lamenting a “talent pipeline crisis.” Many of our excellent leaders, researchers and institutions have explored where those challenges lie, where they don’t and how we might help to recruit and retain professionals in the rabbinate, Jewish education and Jewish communal work.

Those efforts — with particular credit due to the teams at Leading Edge, Atra and CASJE and the skilled researchers who have worked with them — are absolutely commendable and important, and we must redouble our efforts to consider strategic interventions in all of those regards. Indeed, if we don’t view these questions on an aggregate, coordinated and cross-institution basis, we run a very real risk of robbing Peter to pay Paul — of driving talent away from certain organizations to other better-resourced ones, and of driving people away from certain essential roles into other less essential ones. Yes, we should coordinate and collaborate and align around recruitment, training and retention.

Hans/Pixabay

And yet.

Every fraction includes both a numerator and a denominator. If we only focus on the numerator (i.e., the number of professionals entering and staying in those roles) we are leaving out half of the equation. When viewed from this perspective, we can look at the pipeline crisis as what it is: a serious assessment of, and reflection on, the human capital needs of the Jewish community — where those needs are most acute, and where supply, demand and market efficiencies can be leveraged to more suitably meet these human capital needs, making those resources go further to achieve maximum impact.

This is not a call for layoffs. Rather, it is an invitation to step back and to rethink how we structure our communal work so that talent is more highly valued, deployed to its highest and best use and goes further in meeting the aggregate and particular needs of the Jewish community.

There are any number of ways of approaching this question. As an initial matter, though, I want to offer five possible paths to cultivate these efficiencies and to better meet our communal needs.

1.) Harnessing AI for efficiency and human-centered work

Artificial intelligence, for all its challenges, has become pervasive in nearly all lines of work. In some ways, the continued march toward the Singularity may drive more people to crave human connection, explore faith and spirituality and engage with Jewish life. This may require more rabbis, educators and engagement professionals — alongside a lower and less sustainable ratio of “professionals” to “populations served.”

At the same time, we’d be delusional if we didn’t think that AI will make certain jobs obsolete, and allow others to be done in less time and by fewer people. Which jobs should we start transitioning to AI, or hiring fewer people for? Can open positions be filled by AI rather than a new full-time equivalent? Can existing “person hours” go further, if we provide the tools to maximize efficiencies and minimize the amount of work that does not rely on human connection? Hard questions, of course, but we should be asking them openly and honestly. 

2.) Intentionality in hiring 

Relatedly, we might consider which types of roles we should prioritize for support and intervention, and what we’re talking about when we talk about the aggregate or particular talent needs of the Jewish community. 

Not every role requires a Jewish professional steeped in values and tradition. Roles that can be outsourced or automated should not cannibalize resources or divert recruitment efforts away from forward-facing, mission-driven humans with faces and pulses and feelings. To be sure, we rely heavily on our IT support, bookkeepers and operations and administrative teams, and they deserve to be celebrated and treated as well as humanly possible. But we should be attentive to what our “Jewish communal needs” may be, and what needs are ours to solve or to prioritize.

3.) Volunteerism and lay involvement

Professionalization has elevated the quality of Jewish communal work, but it may in some instances have sidelined lay leaders. Many of our communal organizations are doing great things to empower community builders. For those who don’t [yet] prioritize this kind of giving of time and talent, re-engaging volunteers can reduce staffing needs, while simultaneously deepening communal ownership. We should think about whether we are equipping our lay leaders with the tools they need for success, and whether we are empowering our community members to teach, lead and otherwise strengthen our communal institutions.

In some cases, this will be free — or may even result in increased giving. But in some cases, modest consideration and reimbursement of expenses may help to encourage these “human capital contributions.” At the very least, can we help our community builders and educators to more easily use tax-advantaged dollars to buy cheese and crackers when they host a lay-led Torah study in their living rooms?

To be sure, volunteerism is not a substitute for professional expertise, but it can complement it.

4.) Collaborations and resource sharing

The buffet of offerings in the Jewish communal landscape is robust and beautiful. But in an environment in which needs are not being met, the impetus to share resources may allow those resources to go further.

There’s a famous joke about a Jew stranded alone on a desert island. Years later, as a ship comes to rescue him, they notice not one but two synagogues. They say to him, “It’s beautiful what you’ve done here. But if it’s just you here, why two synagogues?” Of course, the man replies, “That one?! Oh, that’s the one I’d never set foot in!”

While diversity is a strength, redundancy is a liability. Collaboration requires trust and coordination and can have its challenges, but the payoff is significant: staffing needs are reduced, with the secondary benefit of forging cross-community connections. By coordinating and sharing resources in programming, event space and support, building and facilities staff and back office resources (to name a few), the aggregate need can potentially be met with fewer — and in many cases better compensated —professionals. And perhaps remote and virtual work allows for more resource-sharing in ways we haven’t yet considered. 

In the case of the Jew on the desert island, perhaps he needed two synagogues. But did each of those synagogues need its own bookkeeper? Security guard? Seven very part-time supplemental school teachers? 

5.) Mergers and responsible sunsets

Collaborations and partnerships can be great, but not all organizations should exist forever. Needs evolve, demographics shift and missions overlap. Yet we often cling to legacy institutions long past their relevance and objective communal value.

Programs, initiatives, “brands” and human resources may be positioned for greater success after migration to better-suited institutions that can support them, leverage a wider distribution system and/or devote the necessary resources to building them up. In those scenarios, existing value may be preserved or even increased, where the alternative might be a “slow burn” to irrelevance, gradual layoffs, burnout and obsolescence. These can be costly and painful, but they can also lead to material efficiencies and help those involved to find deeper meaning and broader reach from within a different platform, putting resources (including human ones) to better and more impactful work. 

Complete mergers can serve similar purposes. They can help to deploy existing resources more effectively — one organization may have a strong brand and back office, whereas another has an inspiring and highly competent executive. Whether those are mergers of equals or of organizations on different footing, consolidation can streamline operations and reduce staffing redundancies — creating certain immediate benefits, but also resulting in a more sustainable enterprise and staffing structure going forward, especially as compared to what those needs would have been with two distinct organizations. Although these strategies may be as important (if not moreso) in local communities, some recent examples on the national and international stages include Moving Traditions’ absorption of JGirls+ Magazine; the union of Birthright Israel and Onward Israel; Leading Edge taking on both Boardified and JPRO; the establishment of the Center for Jewish History; and the consolidation of multiple organizations into the new or newly-imagined Mem Global, Adamah, Upstart, Prizmah and Seventy Faces Media.

Finally, closing an organization before it becomes obsolete is an act of stewardship, not failure. It preserves talent, lay leadership and financial resources for future needs. Indeed, the lay and professional leaders who devoted time, energy and resources to building one organization may be well equipped to lend their expertise and resources in other ways. At the same time, those they’ve hired and trained can be effectively transitioned to other roles that are better suited to leverage their time and talent. This is not a derogation of responsibility — it is an act of generosity. 

We should not be unfeeling in thinking through these options. These often implicate real people’s lifelong work, passion and identities. People whose needs are otherwise unserved may find deep meaning and connection in a struggling institution. Those who had spent their lives building a synagogue, for example, may understandably want to keep that synagogue’s doors open as long as may be possible. 

This approach requires courage and humility, and I don’t offer it lightly. But we owe it to ourselves and to one another to recognize these options, particularly as we think about how we can leverage our available human capital to collectively leave our highest, best and most lasting impact on our communities and on the world.

Summing up

All of the possibilities discussed above are no substitute for the great work being done to encourage more professionals to go into Jewish communal work and to train and retain them in that work. Efforts to increase that numerator, in number and in quality, are vital. But if we ignore the denominator, we risk perpetuating inefficiency and burnout. Once again, I am not advocating mass layoffs or precipitous shut-downs — we are dealing with people and organizations that matter, not pieces on a chessboard. But by embracing emerging technologies, prioritizing mission-critical roles, fostering collaborations, mergers and responsible sunsets and activating volunteers, we can cultivate a more impactful and resilient ecosystem.

This is not about doing less. It is about doing more with the talent we have. The future of Jewish communal life depends not only on how many professionals we recruit, but on how wisely we deploy them.

Doron Kenter, formerly a corporate restructuring attorney, is the director of North American grantmaking at Maimonides Fund.